This Week in Mommyhood

Cati's development is on hyper speed this week. Her hand-eye coordination is getting smoother and she has gotten so much better at reaching and grabbing for things. Now you can't put anything in front of her without her trying to get her little hands on it. She wants to touch it all and bring it all to her mouth. This has led to her being increasingly aware of her bottle. It's so cute to watch her grip the bottle and move it in and out of her mouth; she even tries to hold the bottle when she eats in her sleep! She's also trying to sit and the effort of her doing little crunches is adorable. Watching her develop makes me realize how much I take for granted things like sitting upright and walking.

Crawling development has been, by far, the funnest milestone to see develop. Cati is pushing herself more off the ground and she looks like such a little person when she lifts her stomach off the ground. She's getting better at moving around, but what she does really well is move backwards. I don't even know how to describe how she does it, but you place her down and she'll manage to move herself backwards to the other side of the room. The look on her face is priceless because you can tell she has no clue how she got to wherever she's at.

The downside to all these wonderful leaps in development is the dreaded 4-month wakeful period. Cati still isn't sleeping through the night and, the truth is, she isn't remotely near it. She's still waking up a lot overnight but now she fully wakes up and is ready to play. I leave her in her bassinet and she eventually puts herself back to sleep, but it's still hard to deal with her waking up ready to go when all I can do is wish for more sleep. I guess the good thing is the fact that her naps during the day have gotten shorter and her bedtime has moved up from 8pm to 7pm; I'd rather have shorter daytime naps and an earlier bedtime than longer daytime naps and a later bedtime (more ME time woo hoo!).

I've started to give Cati 2 frozen bottles a day. Before I would only give her 1 but because I don't want to waste any milk by having it pass its freezer time and because I want to keep the freezer full of newer milk, she's been getting 2 bottles. I'm so glad she drinks the frozen milk with no problem. I've heard of babies who don't like defrosted milk and can only imagine the frustration of the mother who has worked so hard to make enough milk for a freezer stash only to have it all feel wasted (it's not really wasted because you can donate, but still).

We got Cati's 3 month portraits this week. The pictures came out great but it makes me sad to see how much Cati has changed in just one month. I'm so glad I decided to get professional pictures done as often as they've been done because I can't help but wanting to capture Cati as a growing baby. Before I wished time would speed up and now I want it to slow down just a little bit so that I can savor the moment more.

With each passing week, I feel more and more relaxed and comfortable in my mothering role. Cati has reached a whole new level of deliciousness. She smiles all the time and she's reacts happily to all our hugs and kisses. I love to watch her sleep (we have successfully weaned her off the swaddle!!!!!!!!!!!) and see her discover the world around her. She's my little human being :)