Oh this poor neglected blog.
As most of you know by now, my Grandma was suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away just a few weeks later. When we heard the news we decided to head back to Phoenix so that she could have a chance to meet Eleanor. Because of her sudden death we ended up staying in Phoenix for three entire weeks. Throughout all of the hustle and bustle, I let my attempt to take a photo a day of Eleanor slip, so I guess I'll have to readjust my goal to at least one photo a week.
Eleanor is 10 weeks old today, so I'll start there and work back.
So big!
Lots of people in Phoenix asked how much Eleanor weighed and I honestly had no idea. We hadn't been to the doctor since she was two weeks old. I guessed that she might be around 10 lbs. Well Monday we went in for her two month well baby check and she weighed in at a nice 11 lbs 10 oz, which is up four lbs from her birth weight. She is now 24 inches long, which is FIVE inches longer than her birth length!
She’s right at that in between phases where she is awake for a large part of the day and would like to be entertained, but she isn’t really into toys yet, so the task falls on Mama. Currently she enjoys my renditions of “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” and “Three Little Kittens,” but her favorite is probably when I pretend to eat her feet.
She’s making lots of sounds now, including some super cute happy shrieks. I think there have also been a few laugh attempts, but it’s hard to tell. She likes to say “ooo,” and “ahh” and “ggggg” and “ah-gah.” This week she started not only practicing the sounds, but their pitch as well.
I’ve tried to start reading to her, but she is not at all interested in it yet and usually bursts into tears in the middle of a book. I really can’t wait until she is old enough to enjoy being read to.
I guess that’s just how life with a baby goes, but I feel like all I do during the day is try to find new ways to not make Eleanor cry. She starts to cry, so I try holding her in a different position, quiet for a few moments, then more crying, so I try another position, or maybe offer her the breast. More crying..hmm..what now? Maybe she’s tired, or would like to walk around. Maybe she’d like to sit down in the…no definitely not that. So it goes, until daddy gets home from work and its his turn to try to figure out what will stop the crying.
Such is life with a two month old, brief periods of quiet between bouts of crying.
We bought Eleanor a play gym this week. I agonized over which one to pick. After much back and forth and handwringing, I finally settled on some rainforest themed Fisher Price rainbow monstrosity over the much more subtle Skip Hop Tree Top Friends one. My thinking was that babies love bright colors, and it was mean of me to want to buy a more demure toy for her just because it would look better in our apartment. She also had a chance to play with Atlas’s brightly colored Fisher Price do dads while in Phoenix and seemed to love anything with movement and flashing lights. So I got her the garish play gym with the colors and the lights and the plastic dangly bits, but the cat seems way more into it than she does.
"Hmm..."
"I'd rather look at you..."
"Get me outta here!"
I'm hoping she'll like it more when she figures out how to grab for the little rainforest friends.
These photos are all up on Flickr and Facebook, so they aren't anything new, but here are a few of my favorites from weeks 6-9.
9 Weeks
8 weeks with Atlas
7 Weeks
6 Weeks
I'm so glad to have this last picture of Eleanor with her Great Grandmother, and even more glad to have the memory of Grandma peacefully holding and rocking her while she slept.
