Alyssa's First Tooth!!!

Alyssa's first tooth is coming in!!! She's been a drool-monster the last little while, super cranky, and chewing on everything. Then, a few days ago, she grabbed my finger to shove in her mouth and chew on (like normal) and I felt it! A tooth! And it was a sharp little bugger. I have seen it, but I haven't been able to get a picture of it because every time we open her mouth to look at it, she covers it with her tongue. So as soon as she cooperates with the camera, I'll get a picture of it up. It's just a little white dot at this point, not very impressive.

5 Months Old

As of today, Cinco de Mayo, Alyssa is officially 5 months old. In my Teaching and Learning with Technology class tonight, I was working on a project to create a movie. This was very last minute and I only had what was on my laptop with me, and no camera, so I decided to make a slideshow movie of pictures of Alyssa to show how much she's changed. And, looking back at the pictures, she has. So enjoy!

Ahead of the Curve

Alyssa had a checkup at the doctor's today and she's definitely ahead of the curve. She'll be 5 months old on May 5th and is growing like a weed. She's at the 89th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for height. She weighs 18.4 pounds and is 26.25 inches tall. Thanks to my department chair, we got a new car seat for her, since her current car seat only holds up to 22 pounds. The new car seat should work for her until she doesn't need a car seat anymore (it's a convertible that holds 5-65 pounds). I'm definitely excited to not have to buy one - they're expensive!

Alyssa started eating from a spoon last week. We've been putting it off because we're super busy, but I got curious and gave it a try. And she loved it. It took her a couple of times to get the hang of it, but eventually she took to it and was gulping down the cereal as fast as I could get it to her mouth. I'm not sure if she liked the cereal or wanted to chew on the spoon, but she sure wanted that thing in her mouth. The only thing that saved us was the kitchen towel that covered both her and the Bumbo - it saved an hour of cleanup and an outfit. It was a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself (it might have been my idea).

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

Alyssa is growing up fast. Her new favorite pastimes are to lay on the floor and rolling back and forth, kicking her legs and waving her arms, scooting herself around in a circle on her back, and grabbing anything within arm's reach. She's becoming more mobile and inquisitive and I'm afraid our peace is slipping away quickly. She's already working hard on learning to crawl, pushing herself up onto her knees, so that's not too far away either.

She's outgrowing clothes faster than we can get them too. She's 4 1/2 months old and we think over 20 pounds (we haven't been to the doctor in a while, so we're not sure). She's getting taller and (I hate to say) pretty chunky, but she's a healthy and happy baby. I was giving her a bath last night and she wouldn't lay down on the reclining side of the tub like normal, so we moved over to the toddler side where she can sit up. She liked that because it let her splash even more (she loves getting mommy's shirt all wet during bath time).

We went to Utah for spring break the week before Easter so the rest of Mike's family could meet the baby. She was a big hit and I felt like I didn't see her much the whole week (except when she was crying or sleeping, of course) - everyone wanted their turn holding her. She wasn't too happy when we got home and no one was holding her all day.

Work has been pretty crazy for Mike and I recently. My hours seem to keep getting longer, and now I have class 2 nights a week. I feel like I'm running around all day working and my to-do list keeps getting longer. Mike's still working in special ed during the day and he's trying to get his real estate career going in the evenings and weekends, so he's super busy too. Thank heaven for babysitters.

In good news, Alyssa slept through the night last night for the first time!!!!! Hooray!!!!! She started fussing a little at 5:30 and when Mike said he hadn't gotten up with her, I realized what had happened. And I was so happy. I'm having a great day today.

Spring is Here!!!

...and it's a beautiful thing. Alyssa is experiencing her first heat wave, so we're busting out the cute summer dresses and she's loving it. We got our first picture of her smiling - she's been smiling for a month or so now, but only at faces and not for the camera. It's hard to capture that. Her smile is infectious and makes the world a better place.

Hungry Baby

Alyssa is always hungry. And she's gaining weight like crazy - she's a little chunker. So we contemplated this problem, talked to more experienced parents, and we think we came up with a solution: cereal. We're adding it into her bottles at night to help her eat less and hold her over and it's working really well. She's eating about 2 ounces less from her cereal-laden bottles, and waiting to eat an hour or two longer between bottles. Success! Only problem is, now she's even more cranky because she's constipated. Is there ever any end to baby crankiness?!?!?!

Alyssa turned 3 months old on Friday. She's taken to talking to inanimate objects, like the smiling lion attached to her bouncer. She jabbers loudly and shamelessly, for hours every day. She's very entertaining. She's teething, so she's drooling all over everything. She even drooled on her leg today (don't ask me how she did that). We're keeping a bib on her most of the time, so she doesn't soak through her clothes and make herself cold. We haven't see any teeth coming up yet, but they must be, because the teething tablets work miracles. She smiles all the time and it melts your heart. We've done our best to get a picture of her smiling, but she only smiles for her lion and for other people's smiles, not for the camera. We'll get one, one of these days, I hope.

In short, life with a baby is a lot of work, but it's totally worth it.

So. Tired.

Mike and I miss sleeping. A lot. Alyssa's teething, and so she's super cranky and won't sleep anymore. Before this teething stuff, she would sleep 6 hours at a time. We loved that. Now, she's up every hour and will only take an ounce or two at most, if she eats at all. We take turns getting up, but it's still too much to handle sometimes. We're so dead by Friday we can't think straight. My students must have started thinking I've gone insane because of my mood swings. I'm gonna go take a cat nap. :/