Anja has been making steady progress with crawling. It's not really full-out crawling with all four limbs taking steps, but she really gets around so I'm calling it crawling now.
Last Friday we went to a Mom/baby group for the first time. It was pretty fun. It was a "pre-crawlers" group at the birth center where we had planned to have Anja before the preeclampsia. There were about 10 of us there. The babies ranged in age from about 2 months to about 8 months. We mostly compared notes about what the babies were doing, shared our concerns about all topics in parenting, and gave advice to each other regarding what has worked for us. It was very nice and I plan to go again. Although I don't know how much longer I can consider her a pre-crawler.
Sleep has not been good lately. She was doing really well for a while, occasionally sleeping all the way through the night, but usually up only once. Now she is up repeatedly, demanding food each time, and having trouble falling asleep afterward. Here is Jay's account of last night:
"I went to sleep at midnight, and just as I was falling asleep Anja woke up. So I tried to calm her down, but she demanded food. She ate 5oz, then played in her crib for 1hr. I sat next to her in the chair with my eyes closed. She finally fell asleep at two. I went to bed, fell asleep at three, then got up with her at 6:30 and fed her again. 3.5hrs total for me, 4hrs + 4.5 = 8.5 hours for her. Having trouble concentrating today, very scatterbrained."
Each week I think to myself, "Something's gotta give, we can't keep doing this," and then another week passes and we're still doing it, and we get by. It sure is hard to feel like a real person, though, when you never sleep through the night yourself. The night before last we made sure she had a really big feeding before bed, including some rice cereal, which is supposed to keep babies full overnight, and she was still up a bunch of times. We've decided not to try the "cry it out" method for a number of reason, so every time she's up, we're up. Besides, she is genuinely hungry each time, so she needs to be fed. I'm so jealous of the parents whose newborns sleep through the night without any coaxing at all. And she rarely takes more than a couple of 20 minute naps throughout the day.
We picked up a used infant booster seat last week for a few dollars (I love the baby consignment store we have in town) in anticipation of needing something better than a bouncy seat for feeding soon. When she's in it, all she wants to do is frantically bang her toys around and hit the tray. It's almost like she doesn't know what to do with her hands, now that she isn't using them for balance!
A few days ago she sat up unsupported for the first time. She moved from hands-on-the-floor sitting to a straight up sitting position with her arms in the air. She was so surprised and held it for several seconds. I was so surprised that I didn't dive for her fast enough before she went over backward. So I'm not sure when she'll want to try it again.
My friend Kim came over last week with her son Toby, who is about 9 months old. They are a little young to play together yet, mostly Anja just plowed headfirst into Toby while he wondered what she was doing. But look how cute they are together!
Anja is really interested in toys these days. She loves this wooden toy with stackable rings, she crawls straight for it. I don't know if she likes the colors, or the height, or the fact that she can knock it over. She also really likes tupperware and empty powerade bottles. And as you saw last week, full heads of cabbage.
And she loves these waterproof bath books, which is great, because they're washable:
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