Party of Four?

they say that babies grow and “learn” while they sleep. well, if not learning while they sleep, internalizing and hard-wiring the things they learned throughout the day. charlotte must have had some good naps this weekend, because she’s a different baby today.

for starters, i noticed that the 0-3 month sleepers were getting a bit short. when i examined the 3-6 month ones, they looked a little long. better a little long than too short, so i washed them up and put them in the dresser. thanks to this week’s poop-quake, we’ve already gone through two of them today, and i must say, they fit much better. she also *looks* like she grew another inch or so overnight, but i’m sure that’s a trick of the eye. she’s a skinny little mini, so they’re a bit wide on her. we’re still keeping the smaller onezies, tops, and foot-less pants out, since they’re not as affected by the length issue.

we also bumped the straps in the car carrier up a notch. she’s much more comfortable now, sitting more upright and much less hunched. i feel kind of bad that we hadn’t done it sooner.

one of charlotte’s favorite toys is a leapfrog seat with a bar across it. the bar has 3 shapes that dangle from it and when you hit them, music plays for about 5 minutes or so. when it stops, you need to hit one of the shapes again to make it go. after a weekend of daddy showing her how it works, today she started triggering it on her own. i don’t think she’s quite figured out that it’s the hand and the shape making the music, but she knows if she bounces around and flails her arms in their general direction, more often than not, she’ll get what she wants.

after the poop-quake rendered the seat inoperable until it gets laundered, i dropped her in her swing to finish cleaning up. normally she looks up at the mobile and track the animals. today, she greeted the with a spontaneous smile and some cooing, as if the were old friends. she has done that before, with the mobile in her crib, but never the swing. she was much more engaged than she’s ever been, and for much longer.

all this added mobility and sight means she’s better entertained by the world around her. this makes her a much happier baby than she was a month ago, and has made it much easier to care for her while doing other things like laundry and blog writing :)