Look who's 6 (weeks!)

(This is a long one!)

Well, first let me say that "Kayla" forgot a couple things last week. First, she's smiling a lot more - even more this week than last week. Second, um, I forgot the second thing. It'll come to me.

This week her Great Grandparents were in town and boy were they in love. They just wanted to hold her and look at her all the time. I can't say that I blame them - I do it too. She made a liar out of me though - bragging all the time about what a good baby she is, how she's not too fussy. For the first 2 days they were here she was fussy and crying - or sleeping all the time. But they got one good day with her yesterday. We took her to Descanso Gardens on Wednesday - she slept right through that little visit - but she didn't miss much since very little was in bloom. But it was nice to be able to get out and get some "fresh" air. (I put that in quotes b/c we are in LA after all). They were much more impressed with the flowers planted around the medical complex they walked around with Kayla while I was inside at my 6 week post-op appointment. :)

Kayla definitely recognizes us now and smiles at us - not all the time but much more often than before. And if you put her in her swing she appears to be able to see the little butterfly mobile that hangs above her. So her vision and focus is getting better. Everything is still blurry for her but it's improved.

Her new favorite position to be in while being held is facing out - it used to be that she wanted nothing more than to be nestled up against my chest but now she wants to be turned around facing the world. I think it's a little early for her to be ready to face the world but that's my problem - not hers. I do hope she'll like to nestle a little while longer. She also prefers to be on her stomach or her side when she's laying down - unfortunately with the SIDS scares we can't let her sleep on her stomach but she can at least fall asleep that way and when she's in a nice deep sleep we can turn her over. She's supposed to get tummy time each day anyway to help strengthen her arm and neck muscles- and she does so good at holding up her head (for a few seconds) when she's being held and turning it from side to side when she's laying down.

We're doing really well at the night time feeding/sleeping schedule, for now. I put her down to sleep between 10 and 11 (it's still hard to get her down - she definitely fights sleep - and I don't know why - who doesn't want to sleep?) and then around 3 or 4 she wakes up, I bring her to bed with us, feed her and we go back to sleep until around 6 or 6:30 at which time I get up and feed her and work on getting Eric up. That way I get much more sleep than I was getting when we went to her room for the feeding. Staying in bed appears to signal to her that it's not yet time to get up because she has no problem falling back to sleep after eating.

She appears to be a morning person - we have such a good time from about 6:30 until her first nap around 8 or 8:30. Because she's in our bed we spend a few minutes in there with her while we wake up - tell her good morning, give her lots of hugs and kisses. It's our little family time. Soon though that will end when I go back to work. Hopefully she and I will still have time in the morning - that's one thing I'd be willing to get up extra early for (there aren't many things).

She's also starting to get better at being on her own - not having to be held all the time. She can sit in her swing or lay on her mat or in her crib for a little bit and be just fine. It doesn't last long - I get bored just laying around too - but it's something.

I do believe her hair has grown just enough that it now doesn't lie flat in the back. I think I'll have to keep trying the clips and bows to make it look cute. She's now my little alfalfa baby. (She's been cyclops baby, burrito baby, and now alfalfa baby. :) )

Okay, it's taken me over an hour to write this and she should be getting up from her nap now. I'll have to write a separate one to talk, again, about being a parent. :)

** updated to include the fact that Kayla is very good at impersonating several barnyard animals. She sounds like a horse when she stretches, a pig when she snorts, and I swear she's sounded like a goat but I can't remember what she was doing at the time. :) It's really very cute - my barnyard baby. :) LOL