little black journal

Time is flyin’ – our (not so) itty bitty baby turned three months old on Saturday!  The latest on our ol’ Bag of Books:

She’s getting better and better at entertaining herself – despite my resolve to keep our home as free as possible from baby clutter, I broke down a couple of weeks ago and bought her one of those obnoxiously bright play mats, complete with a dangling elephant and giraffe and monkey.  Some days, she’ll lay there for thirty minutes at a time and swat at her animal friends.  Her ability to grab and grip things (and eventually put them in her mouth) improves day by day.  It’s fun to watch her play, to see her realize that her hands are attached to her body and that they can be used to control the objects around her.

We’ve been doing some good gettin’ out lately – we hit the mall together a couple of times last week, we’ve taken some long walks, and we’ve made many a trip to the neighborhood bakery.  But our best outing was our trip to the Seattle Aquarium with my mama friends and their little ones.  I was surprised by how taken Jules was with the big fish tanks, at her wide-eyed, open-mouthed curiosity.  I’m starting to understand the joy in watching your child discover something new.  Granted, she was probably more taken with the blue glow of the lights and the busy stream of bubbles than she was with the beautiful array of fish, but still, there was this new little spark in her gaze that I’ve never seen before.  I can’t wait to show her the zoo and the ocean and, someday, Paris!

Sleep.  Ahhhhh, how quickly our conversations and schedules and moods have come to revolve around sleep!  Juliette still wakes once or twice each night to eat, and naps have been frustratingly brief as of late, but we’re rolling with it as best we can and feeling thankful for those nights where she blesses us with a 6 or 7-hour stretch of snoozing.  Most mornings she sleeps until 7:00 or 7:30 (or even 8:30 this past Sunday! hallelujah!); on the rough days she’s waking in the deep darkness that is 6 a.m. in December.  I stumble into her room, tired and a wee bit cranky, but then she flashes me her ultra-sweet morning grin as I peer down into her crib and all is forgiven.  Taking her out of her swaddle blanket is like unwrapping the cutest, warmest, cuddliest present ever.

We’re spending less and less time bouncing Juliette on the ball these days, as we’ve discovered alternative means of soothing her.  If she’s not too fussy, the pacifier and some cuddle time might do the trick.  If she’s a little more upset, we may resort to laps around the kitchen island with her in the stroller.  If she’s really fired up, there’s nowhere she’d rather be than in papa’s arms, propped up just so, as he walks her around the house and assures her in his calmest voice that all will be ok.

Every day with this girl continues to be a surprise – when I wake up each morning, I don’t know if the day will hold long naps or inconsolable fits of crying or tummy time sessions full of goofy grins.  But I can always count on at least a few happy smiles, a couple of precious cuddles, a moment or two where my heart flip flops with love for our baby Jules.

Ohhhhh, this face!  She kills me.