2 Months & 5 Days Old!

Get ready because this is a long one! We cannot believe that it has already been 2 months since our little peanut was born. It has been the most crazy, sleep deprived, yet awesome two months of our lives. We could not ask for anything more. We are extremely blessed. Grace is doing so many wonderful things.

Here is a list of things she has started to do during the past month:

• On November 4th she started to show us her "real" smile. Wow is it a beautiful smile!
• She has started to lift her head during tummy time and lift her chest off of the ground. She is also starting to try and roll from her tummy to her back. Crazy but true! It's actually a bit scary. She also tries to scoot when she's on her tummy and gets really upset when she doesn't have anything to kick off of so we have to put her hands by her feet and she kind of kicks off of them and moves. She also does this when she's on our chest.
• She is starting to hold some of her weight when we stand her up on our lap.
• She absolutely loves to suck on her fists when she finds them. Usually this happens when she is on her tummy, but on Saturday night she actually stuck it in her month during bath time. It was adorable!
• She is following objects from across the room. Jason figured this out one night after dinner while she was in her swing. He walked away from her and notice she turned her head and followed him so he kept repeating it and watched her while she watched him.
• She loves to kick her legs and swing her arms. She swings her left arm around a lot. She looks like a little boxer.
• She loves to stick her tongue out and she will imitate us when we do this.
• She has started to coo and babble and she will also imitate us when we do the same thing back to her or when we talk to her.

Now for her likes:

• She loves lights! We just put our Christmas tree up because we know how much she would appreciate the lights on it!
• She loves music! Sometimes when she is crying she will just stop if she hears music. She also loves when we sing to her. She really seems to like "Old McDonald had a Farm".
• She loves her swing and bouncy chair. This child loves to be on the move and we really don't understand where she got it from. She hardly ever moved while she was in my belly. It must be from being on my feet all day while I was teaching. I don't know!
• She loves nursing. She will take the bottle when Grandma Peej or Daddy give it to her, but she is not a huge fan. She most definitely will not take a bottle from Mommy!

Now for her dislikes:

• She hates wet diapers. She will let you know the minute it's wet.
• Going to bed. She will always cry and we've just gotten used to it. She seems to like it more when Daddy puts her to bed rather than when Mommy does it. She cries and fusses a lot more for Mommy!

2 Month Check-Up:

She is now 10 pounds even and she is 21 3/4 inches long. Her head circumference is now 15 inches. She is now close to the 25th percentile in everything which is quite a jump from her 2 week checkup. Dr. Wells was shocked that she was tracking him with her eyes from across the room at her appointment. He was also quite impressed with her motor skills as she tried to pull an instrument he had in her ear out, then grabbed his arm, so all was well in that department --- he said she was showing skills that usually only 4-5 month olds start to develop!

She also had to have the dreaded 2 months vaccinations. I don't think I was quite prepared for that. I felt pretty bad for her. The nurses had me put Grace on the table and I held both of her hands and then they quickly administered the shots to her upper thighs. Grace's face turned bright red ( like fire engine red) and closed her eyes and opened her mouth. You could see actual tears on her eye lashes. She just laid there like that for about 30 seconds to a minute with no sound coming out of her mouth. Then the screaming began. So I immediately picked her up and tried to comfort her. Finally after a few minutes she calmed down and we went home. When we got home I took her out of her carseat and went to lay her down so I could go to the bathroom and she started crying again so I had to pick her up and hold her. I ended up nursing her and then she feel asleep so all was well. My mom and I ran to the mall to pick up a few things for Grace. When we got home my mom went to give her a bottle and she absolutely refused it. She just wanted her Mommy which was so rewarding to me. I think it made the past two months of frustration with nursing worth it! She ended up sleeping for most of the evening and she only woke up twice during the night and she seems to be doing a bit better today. At least we know that she won't get any "deadly" diseases and hopefully she will continue to stay happy and healthy!

I will get Jason to post a bunch more recent pics tonight or tomorrow!