3 months old!

Holy smokes, our baby girl is 3 months old already!  She is growing and changing so much.  Anna really is a sweet, good-natured baby. I feel so blessed every day to be her mommy!

Here are some of Anna's new developments in the past month.

According to the bathroom scale, Anna is about 13 pounds now.  I haven't brought out the tape measure to see how long she is (no doctor appointment this month), but she's definitely growing! She is in mostly 3-6 month clothes now, with the shirts fitting pretty perfectly and the pants about 1 1/2 inches too long. (She has my short legs, poor girl.)

Anna's current obsession is with her hands. She puts her fingers/fist in her mouth and sucks so vigorously you'd think her life depended on it!  It's really funny because she concentrates so hard trying to move her hand to her mouth and gets really frustrated when she can't do it.

Trying so hard to get those fingers to her mouth!

Anna is starting to "talk."  When we talk to her, she makes cute baby cooing sounds back to us.  I feel like she's really trying to tell us something!  I wish I could understand what she is saying. :)

We were starting to get a little concerned because Anna would go cross-eyed all the time.  But she's gotten a lot better focusing her eyes in the past couple weeks.  She can track moving objects with her eyes pretty well now. Her eyes are still blue. No signs of turning brown yet, but we'll see!

"What? I'm not cross-eyed!" ;)

She's also doing better with tummy time.  She doesn't cry as soon as you put her on her belly...she can usually stay happy for about five whole minutes now. :) She can hold her head up almost 90 degrees and push up with her forearms.  Just in the last few days, she's started to show some signs of wanting to roll over, rocking to one side.  I think it will still be a few weeks before she gets the hang of it though.

Tummy time with the Boppy

Anna HATES baths.  She has gotten better at tolerating most unpleasant things (getting her diaper changed, getting a shirt pulled over her head, getting buckled in the car seat).  But she hates baths more and more each time she gets one. She knows now when bath time is coming, and she gets this look of sheer panic on her face when I go to put her in the tub. Generally, she screams (the "my world is ending!" cry) through the whole thing.  Thankfully, it's only something I have to put her through a couple times a week.

On a good note, Anna will take a bottle now with no problems!  That is really exciting for me because that means I can leave her with Derek or a baby-sitter for more than 30 minutes. (She really doesn't eat that often, but sometimes it feels that way!)  She also is getting less picky about pacifiers and will take more than just the one.  She prefers her fingers though. :)

Anna loves being outside now that it's getting warmer!  We go for a walk or just lay out on a blanket almost every warm day.  Anna loves being outside in the sun.  She just closes her eyes, tips her head back, and soaks it in!  We usually just walk around our neighborhood, but sometimes we like to go to this park with a duck pond that's just a few miles away.

Going for a walk

At the duck pond...sucking on her fingers

Anna's nighttime sleep is about the same as it was a month ago.  She still generally wakes up twice in the night to eat.  She's really efficient now, she eats and is back asleep in less than 20 minutes, so that's nice.  She is awake for longer chunks of time during the day, and naps are starting to be longer and more consistent.  She usually takes three or four naps a day, ranging from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.  It's nice having a more predictable schedule.  Now I get a lot more done during the day, and I typically get to take a shower before noon.  Here's to celebrating the little successes of mommyhood! :)

She is getting better at putting herself to sleep.  More than half the time, she falls asleep in her crib with just a little help from me or Derek and a pacifier.  The rest of the time, she needs to be rocked or held until she's almost asleep, and then we can usually put her in her crib and she'll drift off the rest of the way. Every once in awhile when she's overtired because she hasn't napped well or we've kept her up too late, nothing really works.  She just cries and cries, and we do everything trying to calm her down, and she just cries and cries...and then all of a sudden, she falls asleep.  Those nights are not fun!

Let's see, what else can I tell you about our Anna-girl?  She's still a curious little thing and is always looking everywhere.  She moves her head back and forth constantly, trying to see everything in the room.  It's so funny!

She hates sudden, loud noises and will jump--and then cry--whenever Derek sneezes or I drop a pan in the kitchen. But she likes loud background noise such as the vacuum or a fan.

She loves motion.  In the car it's so funny because we'll be driving along and she'll be fine until we stop at a light.  Then she'll cry and cry until the light turns green and we start moving again.  She does the same thing in the stroller...if it's moving she's happy, if it's not she cries.  She also loves bouncing, rocking, swinging, and dancing with Daddy. :)

She has the perfect pouty-lip face down pat.  It's so sad, but so adorable at the same time.

She does this funny thing that I call "leftover cries."  It's when she is crying about something, and we go to comfort her, she calms down but still gives a few half-hearted, "leftover" little cries.  It's like she's saying, "Ok...I'm fine now...but I was really upset...so....waa...waa...waa"

Probably my favorite thing is when I go to get her from a nap and she's crying, but as soon as she sees me, she breaks out in a huge grin.  It makes me so happy when she does that. :)

"Hi, Mom! I'm awake!"

....and sucking on her fingers again. :)