From Swing to Crib and More

Since I've been off work this week to stay home with AnnaBeth while Kent's parents are in FL (his dad is attending a homicide seminar), I thought it would be the perfect time to transition her from her swing in our room to her crib in her room for night time sleeping. She's already been taking most of her naps here at home in her crib (and all of her naps in a crib at Nana's) so I was hoping that sleeping in it at night wouldn't be that big of a deal for her. Turns out, I was mostly right. She's actually done surprisingly well with the switch! The first couple of nights, she woke up in the middle of the night wanting to eat but went back to bed right away without much of a fuss. The third night she started to wake both times I got up to pump but putting the bink back in her mouth put her right back to sleep and she woke up half an hour earlier than normal during the week. Last night she got to bed 2 hours late since we went to Wayne and Julie's for dinner but she didn't make a peep until 530am! We've not used the swing since Sunday and I'm pretty happy that our D battery purchases are going to significantly decrease! I may need to move the swing to the living room (as if there isn't already enough big baby things taking up the little space we have) so she can have one more place to be instead of either the exersaucer or activity gym when she's having "independent time."

All week it seems like she's been eating like its going out of style! She's been taking 5oz every 3 hours on the dot. She can sometimes take 5 1/2 oz but that last 1/2 oz seems to sometimes be a bit of a struggle for her. Not only is she taking 5oz a feeding, she's taking the WHOLE 5oz before burping! I sat her on our scale today and it said she's 12.2 pounds which is 2 pounds heavier than her 2 month checkup. She'll be 4 months on the 19th (although I think technically she was 17 weeks yesterday), but she won't have her 4 month checkup until August 1st. Now that I'm back to work, I can't just take her to the doctor any day I please and I wanted a Saturday appointment so Kent can go too (I had to do her 2 month shots by myself and I don't want to have to do it again!). I can't wait to learn how much weight she's gained and how many inches she's grown since her last checkup.

AnnaBeth has also been doing a lot more interacting with the toys that hang from her activity gym. For awhile she was just kicking at the monkey and not doing a whole lot with her arms. Then she started batting at the alligator and penguin but still mostly kicking that poor little monkey. Well now she's grabbing at the alligator or penguin (and sometimes the monkey if she happens to be under him)! The alligator has a little clear, rotating ball in hands that has little fish in it and it rattles when you spin it around. That's what AnnaBeth has been grabbing specifically when she reaches for the alligator. And when she does, she seems to be trying to pull it closer to her face so she can fully inspect what's inside. More and more things are going into her mouth these days (her baby Einstein radio got quite the slobbering earlier this week!). Since she's figuring out how to put things in her mouth, she's also learning how to put her bink back in her mouth after she pulls it out. She's not usually 100% successful, but she tries :) She's also learning how to spin herself in her exersaucer. She still really doesn't try to play with the toys on it but maybe that's because she's still a tad short in it and its probably uncomfortable to get her arms up and over the top of the seat to reach the toys.

She also has quite the strong little legs! She seems to be able to stand on them (with support from us of course) for longer periods of time now before her knees give out and she has to sit down. I let her stand on my lap quite often to help her build the muscles but I'm sure she gets plenty of muscle building with all of the kicking that she does! AnnaBeth has quite the feet of fury so watch out boys, she's probably going to be a good shin kicker :)