Three Months!

Clara is one of those babies who is so easy to love, yet also can drive you up a wall faster than you can blink.  Life with her is certainly never dull with her quick mood changes.  She craves interaction and being around whatever's going on.  Once you meet her eye-to-eye she brightens up with the sweetest, dearest smiles.  She causes me a lot of stress because she doesn't handle being "alone" well while she's awake, and can get fussy fast, which can quickly escalate to ridiculously mad.  She absolutely LOVES being sung to when you look straight at her, and it's so fun to watch her eyes glow with happiness when you talk to her with a lot of expression.  She thinks she's got the best big brother around, because she can't ever get enough of watching him, and she can quickly calm down from getting fussy when he's nearby.

Clara is pretty proficient at rolling.  (Unfortunately I still don't have her rolling on camera.)  She had already been rolling from tummy to back, but then a couple days before she turned 3 months she rolled from her back to her tummy for the first time.  Now as soon as I put her down on her playmat she just goes crazy rolling back and forth.  She can stay happily on her tummy for a good while.  Her frustration seems to come with the fact that she can't crawl (yet).  But she definitely does some scooting!  She's really good at squishing her tooshie up in the air, and kicking off with her legs.  As soon as she figures out that the arms have to move, too, there'll be no stopping her.  Oh, boy!

Clara's on a pretty regular schedule.  Up around 7:00 or so, I feed her, she plays, I get her ready for nap, feed her a little more, she naps around two hours (often have to wake her up), we go off for our morning outings while she switches off on staying awake or sleeping through, or a little of both.  We come home and I feed her and put her down for nap, she naps most of the afternoon (3+ hours), awakes and eats, and then is usually up until bedtime at 7:00.  I just cannot get her to take a nap anytime after 5:00, so if she has happened to awoken too early from her afternoon nap then we're in for a fussy dinner/bedtime prep.  The last couple weeks were really rough with naps because she kept busting out of her swaddle too soon, waking herself up and making herself too mad to easily get back to sleep.  Terribly stressful on me.  I've been using the velcro swaddle me, which she's really just too big and strong for.  But the last couple days I pulled out my miracle blanket instead, and she's napped really really well (a 5-hr nap this afternoon!).  

Clara sleeps from 7 pm to midnight or 1:00 before waking for a feeding.  Then she usually wakes up near 5 to eat again.  For some reason after that 5 am feeding she struggles to sleep on her own anymore.  She's very fitful, wants to be unswaddled but can't sleep like that, keeps dropping the paci, and is very mad.  For the past several nights I've brought her into bed with me after that feeding because it's the only way she gets back to sleep!  She usually conks out really soon after I lay her down with me, so I don't know why the struggle occurs, and I sure don't want to make it a habit!  

Even though I only feed Clara those two (occasionally 3) times throughout the night, I still have to get up a few more times to put her paci back in or help her get re-swaddled.  I'm really tired of her sleeping in our room, but I'm not ready to be away from her throughout the night, with the inconvenience of feeding her and having to leave her to cry if she wants her paci put back in.  I also don't feel safe putting her in the crib swaddled since she can now roll so well.  So I have some things to figure out.

Clara randomly went from pooping 3-4 times a day, to only once every other day or so.  At first I was worried something must be wrong, but she's fine and obviously just maturing.  It's really saved on diapers, that's for sure!

Clara recently had some trouble with rashes.  One of her cheeks was bright red, and her arms and legs had patchy dry rashes on them.  We figured it was eczema.  We bought her better lotion and bath wash, and put Aquaphor on her cheek.  She's looking much better now.

She still loves bathtime, and enjoys kicking a lot during her baths.

Clara is handling outings so much better now!  Now she almost always does fine staying in her carseat, and either sleeps or stays calmly awake.  Yay!  It's such a huge relief for me to go places and not have to feel rushed, stressed, embarrassed, etc.

I got my first laughs from Clara one day this past month.  I was eating an apple and caught her following the stem with her eyes.  So I purposely moved the apple side-to-side to watch her again.  I laughed at this, and she laughed in return.  Such a happy sound!  David's gotten her to laugh while dropping a paci from his mouth onto her head.

Life is still an adjustment, and many days I don't feel like I was cut out for two kids (ha!).  But slowly we'll get into a good rhythm and hopefully be "thriving" more than simply "surviving."  : )

I do love to kiss those soft little baby cheeks.