What's New in Mookietown

Things are pretty quiet around Mookietown, but she's doing a couple of new, cute things. (Everything she does is cute, you know, but these are just new!)

First, I think she's planning on being a marine biologist because she's practicing her echolocation skills. Either that or she thinks she's a whale. She's got the squeak down pat. :o) I'm not quite sure what she's trying to communicate with, though...perhaps the ceiling fan? Here's a little video:



She's growing like a weed - her footless pajamas are all looking like shorties right now. :o) She's taking better naps during the day (usually!) (except for today). She and I are both shedding like sled-dogs in Phoenix -- thanks Pregnancy Hormones! She's getting two little pressure spots on her bottom jaw where, all too soon, two little toofers are gonna erupt. She's getting better about hanging out and entertaining herself for a while. I think it's important for her to play alone on the play mat or in the bouncer with some toys. She spends a lot of time sucking on her thumbs, or her fingers...and I think she'd suck on her toes, too, if she could just get them into her mouth! She has, obviously, recently discovered her feet...so all photos of her at the moment are showing quite a bit of her little rump. :o)

And I think her favorite entertainment of late is what I call "the baby in the bed."  A few months ago, I bought Mookie a plastic crib mirror and installed it at the head of her crib. She never really noticed it because she couldn't crane her neck that way.  Well...a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that she was, in fact, craning her head, looking at the baby in the little mirror. "Yay," I thought! "I think I'll move it to the side so she can see her reflection when she wakes up from a nap, and she can entertain herself!"  So, I moved it.  And during the day, that's exactly what she did. I would hear her wake up, and then she'd notice "the baby in the bed" and start chattering with it. So Cute!! :o)  However, cuteness left the building that night.  See, as babies are prone to do, she would wake after just a few hours of sleeping, and kind of scan the room and squawk to see who responded. Well, thanks to the nightlight I keep in there for my sake, she was able to see the baby in the bed...and she started chatting away. Chat chat chat. It was time to feed her, so I went in and nursed her and she forgot about the baby in the bed. After that, we both went back to sleep. In about 90 minutes, though, as part of a normal sleep cycle, she woke up and did the scan-squawk thing, and again noticed the baby in the bed. And again started to chat. She fell asleep shortly thereafter, so I didn't need to intervene, but once again, about 90 minutes later, the chatterbox revved up again! This time when I went in to her room to feed her, I covered the mirror with a blanket because we can't be having that kind of social hour in the middle of the night!

Here's a picture of her looking at "the baby." Please note: her real head is not flat on top as the reflection suggests! It's a plastic mirror, folks! :o)

Oh, here's a conundrum: she associates being swaddled with going to sleep. And she's too tall for footed pajamas that actually fit her body. But with the discovery of her feet comes the kicking and the squirming and the trying to find those feet when she's in bed. So what happens is that she squirms her way out of the swaddle, and then it is somehow no longer bedtime because she's no longer swaddled. And it's getting colder at night, so if she's not going to stay in the swaddle, but she knows it's time for bed when she's swaddled, how am I supposed to keep her warm at night? She kicks helpless unsecured blankets off within seconds, so they are no challenge for her. She needs to be snug to sleep -- any suggestions for making her snug? I'm thinking of getting one of those sleep-sacks, she can't kick out of those! :o)

Well, I can't think of anything else going on with her for now. Hope you have a great week!