bath time and other adventures

Thanks for all your comments and advice, guys. We're still on the fence about the whole city vs. country thing. We're going to stew on it for a good while and see how we feel in a few months. No rash decisions here. (But I have a feeling this discussion is no where near over.)

Maya is 12 weeks old today! She is "talking" (babbling) more and more all the time. I love to have baby conversations with her, it's so funny. Her favourite conversation buddy is Elmo. My parents gave her this Elmo doll (who is exactly her size at this point) and she loves him so. Every time we bring him out she gets all excited and tells him all her secrets.

Maya has also started laughing and giggling a little bit. I've only managed to coax out a laugh maybe 5 times so far, but I feel like I've won the lottery when it happens.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed that Maya has woken herself up crying a few times. It's heartbreaking to watch, it's almost like she's having a nightmare. Once she's awake, she immediately stops crying and looks kinda confused. I don't know what the heck she's dreaming about that upsets her so much. Maya so rarely cries when she's awake, I hate to think that she's dreaming about something bad or scary.

Our routine is pretty much solidified now. Solidified into basically not being much of a routine at all. We've got the whole bedtime thing down pat - 6pm bath time, 6:30 feeding, 7:00 play with daddy while I make dinner, 7:30 feed again until sleeping and then at that point, our little girl is out for the night.

But daytime is another story. I try to get her down for naps, really I do. But she just doesn't nap well, or consistently. Some days she'll get maybe two hours in and other days (most days) she gets 10 minutes here and there but nothing to speak of. I can't really complain though; she sleeps about 12 hours a night and usually about 6-8 hours at a stretch. She sleeps through the night at least once or twice a week now. We're very, VERY lucky that way.

I guess it's my fault that Maya's not a great napper. We're always filling our days in different ways so she never seems to have the same day twice. Some days we stay home all day, some days we are out running errands, visiting friends, going to storytime at the library or out for a walk. I think all that variation really confuses baby girl's little "internal clock" so she just kinda naps when she naps. If she naps at all.

Here are some pictures from Maya's bath time last night. I "styled" her hair for the first time and was laughing so hard at how adorable she looked that Maya started grinning and squealing back at me as if to say, "I'm funny but I don't know why!" I had to grab the camera. Check out my little cutie:




I am sooooo in love!