Wow, I haven’t updated this site in a while. It’s been very busy. We’ve been getting ready for my parents’ visit tomorrow. They’re coming to stay for a week, so Dave and I have been cleaning as much of the house as we can (my mom’s a bit of a neat freak, so I’m sure she’ll still find things to improve on no matter how much we clean). Lily has been sleeping through the night since about 5 weeks (meaning she sleeps 6 hours straight every night). She is really a very good little baby. She doesn’t even cry when she’s hungry anymore, knowing that I’m right nearby to feed her and tend to her right away. She usually just smacks her lips really loudly, and starts sucking on her hand. If I don’t come right away, she would then proceed to doing a one-time holler: “GEH!!” And then she’d wait for me to come. When she sees me, even in the middle of the night, she has this big sleepy smile to greet me. She’s such a beautiful little kind soul. She’s a very kind person. A happy baby. We’re both very blessed.

She’s been on a really good schedule too. She sleeps from about 10p to about 10a (with the first 6 hours straight through, and then waking up every 3 or so hours just to feed). After that, she’s up for pretty much most of the day, with intermittent sleeping times in between. It’s getting a lot easier to put her down for the night too, in her own little bassinet. She used to not want to be put down — wanting to be held while she slept. But after about 3 days last week, she’s started to accept that she can sleep in her own bed and we’d still be near. During the day, we reward her by spending a LOT of 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 time with her. Cuddling, playing, dancing, singing. Even when she’s napping sometimes, she’s napping in our arms. She loves that.

Our little girl is a lot more active and a lot more vocal. She loves to talk (as evidence by the many videos I’ve been taking of her). She enjoys play time on the mat, though is not too fond of tummy time. She gets frustrated when she can’t roll over right away, and starts to yelp for help. She is also learning how to grab onto the rings and toys that are waved in front of her. Her arm and hand movements aren’t as coordinated as she’d like them to be (you can tell she tries SO hard!), but she is so determined, every so often she’d grab the rings on her own, or bat at it, and she’d have a giant smile on her face and starts yelping in satisfaction. It’s so cute!

We’ve been singing lots and lots of songs to her — some made up (Dave is better at this than I am), and others not. Her favorite song that we both sing to her is “You are my sunshine.” She calms right down and relaxes in our arms when we sing that song. Almost every single time. Sometimes Dave ad libs for her sake (”You are my Lily… my baby Lily… you make me haapppyy, every single day….”). It brings a tear to my eyes sometimes hearing him sing to her. It’s so cute. Daddy’s little girl.

Here’s a video of her in the mornin’, all happy again. This was taken a couple of days ago. I’m usually the first one to see her wake up in the morning. She never cries. We only know she’s awake when she starts making gurgling and giggling sounds like in this video.

This one here is of Daddy and Lily Bean rockin’ and rollin’ together. She is very patient and tolerant. Heh.

So last night was a bit difficult in terms of getting her to bed. At around 10:30pm, we gave her a warm bath (which she LOVED). She was already winding down and doing her “I’m not at all tired because I want to stay awake and play even though I can barely keep my eyes open!” dance. This meant that she was fussy, irritable, and tired. At 11pm, we fed her one last time and I rocked her to sleep in my arms. She was out like a light in less than 5 minutes, half asleep in my arms. I put her down into her bassinet in our bedroom, with soft Buddhist music playing in the background and the lights off. She was still sleeping. I walked out. 5 minutes later, we heard screams from the bedroom. It was the her famous “I told you I’m not tired and I want to be held!! Why are you putting me to bed?!!” scream. The fake “cry.” We decided to wait a few minutes before we tend to her… so that she can eventually behaviorally associate that time to be bedtime and not time to play and be held (heck knows we give her enough of that during the day time!).

So then I went back to the bedroom after her cries continued for about 10 minutes. They were quite fake, and it was very cute, and they broke my heart. It was all I could do not to tend to her right away. This was bout 11:45pm. The instant I came in and spoke to her (”Lily Bean, why are you still up, baby? Don’t you know it’s bedtime?”), she immediately started smiling and laughing. Yeah. “Cry” my butt! Then when she realized I wasn’t going to pick her up, she squawked again. She said she was hungry (hand to mouth and sucking on hand motion), so I fed her again. Another 25 ml of boobie juice. She instantly fell asleep after a quick burp. I put her down, walked out. 5 minutes later, she cried again.

Hm.

Rinse and repeat another two more times. Dave and I switched duties. He went next. She said she was hungry again, so he fed her another 25 ml. She fell asleep, he put her down. I went to bed with her. This was after midnight by now. She was so darn tired by that time that she wasn’t even going to stop crying when we picked her up and sang and danced with her. When she finally went to bed, it was around 12:30am. She squawked one more time just for the sake of it, and I kissed her and she was instantly asleep. Too tired to battle it out again.

So then she proceeded to sleep through the entire night after that. I guess she tired herself out so much. She had stayed up from about 6p to midnight last night, with little bits and pieces of half-hour naps in between. She’s been doing her marathon awake times during the day for a little over a week now. It’s about time she did a marathon asleep time! I had to wake her up this morning at 6:30am to feed her. I nursed her and after getting her fair share, she was instantly asleep again. So she’s still sleeping. Woo! I’m grateful, though, because this was my very first 6-hour sleep, straight through, uninterrupted (I’m not going to count the countless times I woke up whenever she squawked in her sleep — I chalk that up to average Mommy-dom) in about a month. It was nice.

Here’s a photo of the sweetie bean in her kimono outfit (which was the last time she will be wearing it because it no longer fits her too well - so tight!):

So I’ve finally tried my custom-made Hug of Joy sling, after speaking with Joy on how to use it. She appears to be extremely comfortable, so I’m comfortable with using it. She’s been asleep since I put her in, which was about an hour ago. This frees me up for doing so many other things. The only complaint I have right now is that my front hurts a little bit from the c-section incision, so I probably won’t be able to carry her in it for too long for at least another couple of weeks. However, it’s incredibly comfortable and durable, and she sleeps through anything and everything in it — me walking, me bending over to pick something up, me talking to Dave, me sitting at the computer, etc. It’s pretty awesome. And since she loves it so much, it makes it all worthwhile.

Dave fits the carrier better than I do, so he will be using that a lot more. I’ll be using the sling since it’s custom made to fit my body size. Dave won’t fit into it. Heh. Also, I can hold her in various positions, and will be able to hold her until she is 35 lbs. This works well depending on my mood (and hers). This also makes travelling a whole lot easier. Maybe we can go on walks at the beach without a stroller, or whatever. It opens up all sorts of doors!

Since we brought her home from the hospital, she’s been practicing lifting her head and holding it up for longer periods of time. Every time we try to burp her, she wants to hold up that head of hers and look around, wide-eyed and curious. Since about two weeks old, we’ve been doing “Tummy Time” with her — putting her on the play mat or on a blanket on the floor on her tummy so she can practice lifting her head and using her elbows to hold her head up. She’s been doing so great, each time getting stronger and staying up longer. She’s also been wiggling around a lot, trying to crawl and move (she doesn’t quite understand yet that she can’t until she can roll over and support herself with her knees and arms). She gets a little impatient with herself and frustrated that she can’t just go from step 1 to step 5. I keep telling her that this is going to take months but she won’t hear it. Heh.

So last night, we put her on her belly on top of my boppy pillow, to give her that extra support since she’s so darn small. She instantly held her head up, and started looking around. She stayed in that position for a good long time. She looked so pleased with herself, and was content just looking at us while we talked, in that position.

Then, all of a sudden, she started collapsing onto her side, and within minutes, she learned how to roll over back onto her back! She did her FIRST roll over last night, at one month and one week old. Is this too soon? I have no idea. It seems like she’s growing and advancing so fast! What a smart little girl she is. She was quite pleased with herself. I think the first time was by accident, so we put her back onto her belly and immediately she lifted her head and tried to roll over again. She did this over and over again, and was so happy she actually started smiling and giggling a little, at will! She then gurgled a self-approved baby gurgle at us. We were making such a big deal out of it (it IS a big deal!) and we were practically jumping up and down telling her how proud we are of her and how smart she is and what a wonderful SuperBaby she is. Heh.

Wow, isn’t it amazing?! This child of ours is so wonderful!

And here a video of her just lovely and happy as soon as she woke up yesterday. She’s such a happy morning person.