Discoveries

The last few weeks have been weeks of discoveries and I just couldn't wait two more weeks to share all of the exciting news. The sad thing is that the one thing we haven't discovered is how to take a family photo where everyone is smiling and looking in the same direction.

Bubbles
Chloe has been blowing bubbles a lot lately. She has blown bubbles for over a month, but the last few weeks there are constantly bubbles on her lips and sometimes they are really really big. She is drooling a lot too, but we can't decide if it is the early stages of teething or if it is just due to all of the bubbles. I've read that teeth are one thing that is a hereditary development. I'm not sure I really believe that, but in any case Zach started getting his teeth around 5 months and had all 4 front teeth at 6 months and I had my first tooth at about 5 1/2 months. So either way it looks like the teething fairy is coming our way!
Feet
I saw Chloe grab her foot for the first time and my face just lit up. I've been a little anxious because she isn't really grabbing or reaching for things like I thought she would. Even though Chloe is our first and every baby is different, I still thought that she would be reaching for more things. So when Zach and I were playing with her and she grabbed her foot I was very excited. It was like she was saying "Mommy, I can do this, but I choose not to do it, but for your sake I'll prove it to you." Now she grabs her feet here and there when we play and every time I still get excited.
Rolling
Now I'm not sure if she did a legitimate roll over, but she did roll over. When we give her tummy time we always tell her what we are doing as we are doing it and we tell her to put her arm here and roll over. So I rolled her over to her belly for some tummy time and within a few minutes she was on her side and then she did a slow roll to her back. I was so excited and sad because Zach wasn't home. I went to go grab the camera and try to persuade her to do it again, but she wouldn't. She didn't even try again. She smiled when she rolled over, but she hasn't been too interested in trying again.
Fingers
She started sucking on her hand within the past month, but the past week she has started sucking just on her fingers. Sometimes it will be one, other times it will be two fingers and on a rare occasion she will stick three in her mouth and gnaw on them for a bit. We have to watch her sometimes because she will start sucking so hard her little fingers turn red and we tell her to give her fingers a little rest.
Grabbing
She has really started to grab things when we play with her on her play mat. There are these interchangeable rings that we hang and she will hold on and swing them and put them in her mouth and just never let go of them. She also has realized that she can take her pacifier out of her mouth and put it back in herself. Sometimes it gets a little too far for her to reach and that makes her upset so I tell her just to leave it in and stop playing with it, but she doesn't listen. She has also fell in love with a little Zebra toy. Zach and I have separate diaper bags because he doesn't want to carry around a girly Vera Bradley bag so he has a manly satchel. In transferring everything and creating two bags he took the purple hip that she has had in her bag so we went to the store to get a new toy for my diaper bag. After about 10 minutes staring at all the toys I just grabbed the Zebra and said it would do. Little did I know it would be one of her favorite things. It has over sized feet which she tries very hard to get in her mouth, but they are about twice the size of her mouth. She also like to cuddle with it and squeeze it. Zach and I think she is going to grow up with either a special blankey or stuffed animal because this is the first thing she has really cuddled with. It's cute to watch her cuddle and funny to watch her try to figure out how to get the giant foot in her tiny mouth.
Voice
Chloe has definitely found her voice and I'm a little nervous. My mom always said and we always laughed about the fact that the moment Christina's feet hit the floor her mouth opened. That's kind of how Chloe has been minus the feet hitting the floor. Its like as soon as we wake her up and she is fed she just talks and talks and talks. I love to hear her talk, but I wonder if she is going to be like Christina. She has also been trying out new sounds. She squeaks and squeals all the time and we think she just likes to hear the sounds that she can make. When we tell her to say "Ma Ma" or "Da Da" she just gives us a big smile.

Well as you can see it has been an eventful few weeks and even though my family had to postpone their trip until the end of March it has still been a great few weeks. We have a busy month coming up as we are taking our first family vacation to Sedona, I am getting my wisdom teeth pulled out and my family is coming the end of March. Not to mention I'm sure Chloe will be doing hundreds of new things!

3 Months

3 months down and every day I learn something new. I'm not sure if I've bragged enough, but Chloe is a great baby girl! She is now sleeping 11 hours each night and we are so grateful for that. Although, she doesn't like to take her naps as much during the day, but she will catnap and take about three 45 minute naps a day. I will take it as long as she stays sleeping through the night. We are starting to switch her schedule from eating every 3 hours to every 4 hours. We've tried in the past and she wasn't ready so here we go again. I think it will work this time as with each day passing she is awake longer and more alert.

Chloe is starting to get quite a little personality. She's smiling more, although you wouldn't know by the pictures because she immediately puts on a serious face when she sees the camera. She's also really starting to giggle and laugh a lot. I can get her giggling, but Zach can really make her giggle. She also has started to play some tricks. She will fuss or whine in her stroller and then when we try to give her a pacifier she just smiles really big or if she doesn't want to eat anymore she just looks up at us with her big blue eyes and smile while the milk just runs down her cheek and we can't help but to smile back which makes her smile even bigger. When Zach comes home from work he will come over and say hi to her and she will often look the other way and try to hide her smile. It is really funny. We aren't sure if she knows she is playing games, but she is definitely playing them.

Not only has she found a little personality she has also found her hands. She found her right hand first and it was like her left hand didn't exist as she wouldn't do anything with it, but the day she found her left hand was hilarious. It was like we saw this light bulb go off and she was amazed that she had another hand to suck on. She's not really reaching up for things yet, but if you give her a toy she will hold it and swing it around and stare at it very intently.

Call us bad parents if you like, but we have discovered she likes Tom & Jerry cartoons and so we let her sit in her swing in front of the TV and watch an episode or two during the day. I'm not sure why she likes them so much, but she does. Sometimes we will catch her smiling a little smile while she watches the shows. We do try to be educational and have her watch Baby Einstein and Praise Baby as well. I think it is just the bright colors that she likes.

She isn't rolling over yet, but she is working on it. Zach found her stuck in her crib on her side and she was crying because she was stuck on her side. We also will roll her over rather than pick her up when we want her to have some tummy time. Sometimes when she is on her tummy she tries to roll over, but gets stuck on her side. She looks like a fish out of water when she starts flopping and rolling back and forth trying to get some momentum to roll all the way over. Its quite funny.

We have also discovered that she does not like the dark. We had started to notice that when we would be out after dark she would not be happy in her car seat. We initially thought she was just lonely or hungry, but it started happening not around feeding time and even when I would sit back with her. We have a mirror with lights in the back with her that she likes and we thought that maybe at night the lights are too bright or the street lights were coming in on her face too much. We just would let her fuss it out because nothing seemed to work. The other day we went to the Chiropractor and he had turned out the lights to develop some X-Rays and she started fussing there too. Zach took her out front where the lights were on and she was happy. So the next day we went out to dinner and when she started to fuss on the way home I told Zach that maybe it was the dark that she didn't like. He turned on his dome lights and sure enough she immediately quieted down. She was completely content. She has no issues at night in her crib when she knows she is suppose to sleep, but in the car or when she is not asleep she does not like to be in the dark.

As I'm writing this I am realizing just how much she has done and learned in the past month and I'm amazed. We didn't go to the doctor this month, but by our scale she is about 11.5 pounds and between 23.5 - 24 inches long. I can't wait for this next month as my sister and her family and my mom will all be visiting from Indiana. Christina and the kids haven't seen Chloe yet so we are excited to show her off! Also, fingers crossed, there is a possibility that she may meet her new cousin Alemitu this next month!