March 27, 2012
Dear Kate,
What a big month for you! You started day care this month and mommy went back to work. This was such a big change for us – we had so much fun staying at home and playing together. Luckily we both already know that miss Teresa will take such good care of you so we don’t have to worry that you’ll be totally neglected. It was still harder for me than I expected to drop you off there the first day – I went back home after dropping you off and kept that you were in the next room sleeping and that you would wake up any minute. I hated remembering that you were so far away! You weren’t so excited about being there either: for the first couple of weeks you had a hard time eating and sleeping at school, but you’ve adjusted beautifully by now and are getting so comfortable there.
Now that you’re used to bottle feeding at school, I’m hoping you’ll increase your milk intake during the day so you can sleep better at night, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. We still wake up 2-3 times a night. I can’t wait for that to end! You really are adorable when you wake up in the middle of the night though; you always make such happy noises and are ready to just play by yourself even if it’s 2am. If only our house was big enough that you could play without waking the rest of us up I’d probably let you just party away in there until you fell back asleep. What does drive me crazy though is that you wake up at 5:15 every morning. I try everything I can to leave you in your crib or get you back to sleep until after 6am so we don’t start any bad habits, but you are persistent! I think you must have learned this from your brother, which is ironic because we’ve FINALLY gotten Nicky to start sleeping in past 6 and I would love the chance to “sleep in” with him.
Your biggest physical development this month is that you roll over both ways now! You LOVE being able to get around and you roll this way and that way to get to the toys you want. Your brother never liked to get places by rolling because it required too much time on his belly, but you don’t mind at all and use it to your advantage to put yourself right in the middle of the action. You are so into rolling that you have trouble sitting still. When you’re in a sitting position you arch your little back and try to get flat so you can get moving. We can’t give you a bath in your infant bath anymore because you squirm all the way down into the bath until your little head is in danger of going under, and there’s no chance of leaving you in your swing without your seat belt on because you would wiggle right out the bottom and fall on the floor.
You are a very tactile baby. While Nicky was obsessed with making things happen (“hey, if I kick this toy it plays music”) but you’re more into touching things. You turn your toys around and around in your hands, one after the other. For you, reading books is not so much about looking at the pictures or hearing the story as it is about feeling every inch of the book. You can be very stubborn about refusing pacifiers – you’re really good at closing your mouth extra tight when we’re trying to put anything in your mouth that you haven’t authorized – but you do seem to get comfort from rubbing your forehead very gently with the tips of your fingers. I can always tell you’re about to drift off to sleep when you start stick your thumb in your ear and start petting your head in slow circles. You’ve also gotten really good at eating your solids. At this beginning of this month you were grudgingly eating a few bites of rice cereal every day, but now you love your big girl food. You gobble up your veggies, but you’re not a fan of any of the fruits we’ve tried so far (another chance for your Olympic style mouth clamping exercises).
This month was so much fun with you, sweet princess. I wish I could pause you right now because I just love you so much, but I know that as impossible as it seems next month will be even more fun. You make us all so happy!
Love,
Mommy