13 weeks

This has been a very eventful week, I feel like Ella's a whole different baby! She finally "got" her mat and now she loves it. She spends up to an hour laying on her back looking up at all the little animals. She "talks" to them and smiles and laughs. She's been trying to grab them, but usually just ends up kind of batting at them. Then yesterday she reached up and grabbed the giraffe's leg and tried to pull it to her mouth, but it wouldn't reach. She also got hold of her monkey later too. She's also been kicking her legs and wavy her arms like crazy. She gets all excited and wiggles all around.

She's talking and smiling so much now. My dad came over on Wednesday and got to hear her babble a little. She's squealing too. At first it was just when she was crying, but then she figured out she could do it any time. It's cute and loud.

For a couple of weeks she's been pushing up with her legs, trying to stand, but her knees would buckle after just a few seconds. Yesterday she figured out how to lock her knees and can now stand for a few minutes with just a little assistance from us.

Tuesday she almost rolled from her tummy to her back. She was supposed to be taking a nap and I was watching her on the monitor. She started squirming around, but she wasn't crying or anything, so I left her alone and just watched. After a few minutes, she had completely rearranged herself in the bed and was half way rolled onto her side. If she would have just pushed off a little with her arm, she would have rolled. She hasn't tried again since then, but I don't think it'll be much longer.

Sleep has been interesting this week. She's been waking up earlier and earlier in the mornings, but she's ready to go back to sleep again very soon, like 30 minutes. Most of the time I can get her to go back to sleep in her swaddle, but not always. She's also been taking much longer naps, usually in the morning. It's nice, but then it's hard to get her to sleep for longer than like 45 minutes in the afternoon. Which means she gets cranky fast in between. I think she's trying to consolidate her naps to be one long one in the morning and one long one in the afternoon, but it's taking her a while to figure it out.

She keeps rubbing her face on her blanket while she's sleeping. Her nose and cheeks, especially her right cheek, are all red from it. Her right cheek looks like she skinned it. It doesn't seem to bother her and if you don't look too close it just looks like she has rosy cheeks. Silly baby!