22 Weeks

Ella's outfit is courtesy of her Grandmas. Nana got her the outfit with the E and her Grandma Dietzman got her the hat which also has a matching E. Jeff hated all the bows and ribbons, but I thought she looked pretty cute.

Swimming lessons from Friday. It went great again. Ella didn't get a very good nap that morning, so I was worried she wouldn't be up to it. But she did fine right until the very end. She really seems to enjoy it. She got a mouth full of water a few times, but it didn't seem to bother her to much. We had the choice to try submersion, but since she was kind of cranky the instructor advised us to wait till next week to try. The other babies that tried all did pretty well. There were a few cries, but no major upsets.

Ella started rolling over from her back to her tummy this week. I knew she was close and had been trying, then Monday she did it like it was no big deal. She did it twice Monday and maybe one other time since then. When she's on her tummy, she's starting to pull her knees up underneath her and kind of scoot forward. I'm thinking crawling may not be too far away. I was reading on Baby Center that they need to be able to sit up unsupported first before they can crawl. She can sit with very little support and she's starting to put her hands out to catch herself sometimes. So, we'll see.

We've had the return of the growl this last week or two. It's more ferocious than when she used to do it, but still very funny and cute. She's also doing this weird noise where she sounds like she's wheezing or gasping. It scared me the first time she did it, but then I realized she was doing it on purpose. She's been doing a fake cough for the last few weeks too, especially when she's hungry and I'm taking too long to feed her. I think she's discovering all the different sounds she can make.

21 Weeks

This pictures is actually from last week, I just thought it was cute.

Ella refusing to go to bed, getting to watch t.v. We almost never let her watch t.v., so she can't take her eyes off of it when we do.

St. Patty's Day. The outfit is more green than it appears here...

Today. She refuses to smile for the camera any more, but she does try to grab it out of our hands.

Ella has been on a bit of a nap strike the last week or so, but what else is new? She still sleeps great at night thank goodness. She's been basically in a good mood despite the lack of sleep, you can just tell she's exhausted. She cries when we try to put her down, but as soon as we pick her up, she's fine. She still occasionally takes a long nap (like maybe three or four all week), but most of the time she wakes up after 45 minutes or so. I've tried all the tricks I know, but nothing seems to be working. This sleep thing is a pain!

She almost rolled over from her back to her tummy a few times this week. I think she could do it if she wanted to. She gets so close and then just rolls back to her back. She seems to prefer to be on her back when she's awake, so there's not as much motivation for her to roll the other way. Still, I don't think it'll be long.

She's been doing her "real" laugh more often. Most of the time she does this little squeal when she's smiley and happy, but she also has this deep giggle. I've noticed the times it's easiest to get it from her is when she's in her deliriously tired phase. Jeff finally heard her do it the other night. We were getting her ready for bed and she was way over tired, but being super wiggly. I started blowing raspberries on her tummy and tickling her and she gave us her crazy laugh. Jeff cracked up and said she sounded like a grown-up.

Her other new trick is crossing her fingers. She can do it with either hand, crossing her middle finger over her pointer finger. I have no idea why she does this, I guess it gives her some variety in chewing on her fingers. She also likes to try to put her fingers in her mouth while she's nursing, especially if she's sleepy. Obviously that doesn't work and she gets so frustrated when she has to choose.

We've had a resurgence of the high pitched squeal lately. She does it both when she's happy and when she's mad, though they sound slightly different. I think she likes to see how high she can go. It's amazing that such a little person can make so much noise!

20 Weeks

Swim lessons! Our friends Mikki and Brian and their baby Vera signed up for the same class as us. It's great having other people in the class we know. Although the girls are mostly oblivious of each other now, it'll be nice as they get older. In general the instructor tries to keep the classes together as long as everyone keeps signing up and the schedule works. So, in theory, we could be in class with the same people for as long as we go. We have a good group, at least three of the other families are in my natural parenting group too, so that's great. As a side note, Ella is the youngest in our class by about a month, although not the smallest.

This is our class. That's our instructor Alex in the middle with the doll. We started out by learning the safety hold, which is the position the babies are in there. We then learned a little song that we'll start all of our classes with. Alex says the singing helps to relax the babies and also signals it's time to start. Ella did great right from the beginning. You never would have guessed it was her first time in the water. I thought she might tense up or get clinging when we hit the water, but not at all. Most of the babies did really well. I guess they don't know there's any reason to be concerned.

After learning the safety hold and the song we moved around in the water some, just to get the kiddos used to it. The next thing was the position above. Basically Mom or Dad just supports the baby's upper torso so their heads don't go under. As soon as you let go their little bottoms float up and some (Ella) start kicking away. She did great with this, even though her mouth hit the water a few times and she swallowed a little water. She insisted on keeping her hands in her mouth most of the time which meant even more water in the mouth, but it didn't seem to bother her too much.

The next thing we did was learn the safety turn. The pictures weren't so great of this, you couldn't really tell what was going on. Basically, you hold the baby facing out at arms length, call his or her name and as soon as they start to turn their heads, you start saying "turn, turn..." and turn them the rest of the way around and into you. The idea is, eventually, they learn that if they jump or fall in or start to swim away but can't make it, they can turn back if they need you and you'll grab them. Obviously it takes a long time to learn this, so we'll do it every lesson. It was hard to even get the babies to turn at their names being called today. I guess there was just too much interesting stuff going on.

The next thing we did was floating. Ella was very unsure of this at first. As soon as her ears hit the water, she closed her eyes and started shaking her head back and forth like "nuh-uh!". But after a few seconds, she realized she was ok and she did great. This was the point were we started to get some unhappy babies. A few cried a little, some just kept trying to sit up which is a natural instinct after six or so months. We're supposed to have them practice in the bath as much as possible to help them get used to it.

The last thing we did was this extended arm swim. Ella kept putting her face into the water, which she didn't like too much, but didn't really get upset. She was starting to get a little sleepy by this time, so I don't think she enjoyed this position as much as the others, but she kicked a ton and did just fine.

We ended the class with another little song, again to indicate to the babies that we were finished. Ella got very chatty during the song, trying to out sing everyone. She got a smidge fussy when we took her out of the water. The pool is heated and the room is quite warm, but I guess it was still a little cool for her. Once we got her dry and changed she was fine. It was so much fun, I can't wait to go back! Ella seemed to really enjoy it too and I hope it'll only get better as she gets older.

19 Weeks

Ella has been in such a good, smiley mood all week, until we get out the camera and then there's no sign of a smile. Oh, well! I think part of our problem with her crankiness the last few weeks has been because we were trying to put her to sleep when she wasn't really tired yet. I was rushing her to bed at the first yawn (as instructed by the baby sleep books), but I think some times the yawns are from boredom instead of actually being ready to go to bed. So now I wait until there are a few yawns, some eye rubbing, or ear pulling, glassy eyes, etc. It's working much better. She rarely cries and goes to sleep pretty quickly after we lay her down. Some of her naps are still short and then she gets cranky fast, but it's an improvement for sure. We're able to do more now too because she's awake for an hour and a half or two hours before she starts getting sleepy.

She's had a few new developments this week. She's started being friendly to pretty much everyone. She seems to recognize familiar faces (besides Mommy and Daddy) more and warm up faster to those people than to strangers. She can see really far away now, she'll follow me with her eyes and smile at me from across the room if I make eye contact and talk to her. She's started playing this little game where she'll make a sound like "aboo" and then pause and look at me. I'll make the sound back and then she'll do it again. If I take too long to mimic her, she'll make the sound again and look at me expectantly. It's pretty funny. She's also finally started looking at books. We started trying to read to her pretty much as soon as she was born, but she would never look at the books and would get fussy pretty quick. Now she'll sit quietly in my lap and look at the book and listen. She is starting to sit up with out assistance for a few seconds or so at a time. If she's on my lap she can do it for longer.

Today we went to an informational session about baby swim lessons. I wasn't planning on signing her up for lessons until the end of April, but after observing the 4 to 12month class, I got so excited I went ahead and signed her up to start next Friday. She did so good at the pool. I'm glad she got a chance to be there first with out getting in the water. She was very interested in the other babies and intent on watching them in the water. All the babies seemed to be having such a good time. I only heard one very brief cry from a baby who went under water for the first time. I'm a little nervous about that part, but it'll be a while before we try that. The instructor says we won't even attempt it until both Mom and baby seem ready. I can't wait to take her back and get her in the water next week. We will definitely have some pictures of that for our weekly post.