Baby Pippa - Three Months

Maybe the five month post will be on time... three and four months definitely won't be...

Here's our adorable Pippa on her three month birthday.

Here's what's been going on in Pippa's third month on earth:

The Stats:  Pippa has really chunked out this month.   Before we weighed her we thought she might have hit double her birth weight (7 lbs 2 oz)  this month but she landed a bit shy of that at 13 pounds 10.5 ounces.  I don't have a height.  She looks extra chunky here because she's totally layered up because I thought we might have to wait outside in line to vote.

Likes:  eating, facing out when being held

This photo was taken just after her two month photo.  Just about at this time she had the biggest poop-splosion ever.  And of course I had her in a disposable diaper so the leggings would fit better for the photo.  And of course disposables don't hold the poop nearly as well as the cloth diapers.  Yeah, it was all the way up to her shoulder blades.

Disikes:  having her hair washed

Lately we've been napping like this once a day.  She just won't sleep so I rock and rock and rock her until she falls asleep and then I'm stuck in the rocking chair for an hour and a half because she wakes up if I try to stand up.  C'est la vie.  Oh, I also use the iPhone reverse camera to see if her eyes are closed when I'm rocking her like this.  So handy, that iPhone.

Favorite Baby Gear:  Pippa really likes her Bouncer lately.  Especially when I turn the vibrating on.  I read and sing to her in it and to be honest, most of the time I eat lunch next to her while she is in it.

Spit up.  It happens.

Biggest Achievements:  Sleeping for 8! hours! the night of 11/14.

Pippa is kung fu fighting here. Watch out, she'll be a black belt by the time she is nine months old.

At nine weeks Pippa really started to vocalize and squeak and squeal.  It is ridiculously cute.  The sounds she makes most often are "agoooo" and "hi"  This video is from the day after Thanksgiving:

In the middle of the month Pippa rolled over once from tummy to back during tummy time.  I'm sure it was an accident and not intentional.  She looked so surprised when it happened!

Biggest Challenges:  Getting out of the house.  Pippa doesn't like to be in the carseat unless the car is going fast and we haven't figured out how to make her like being in the Baby K'tan carrier.  She was ok in the newborn position, but now she's too big for that and the next position is facing inward, but she hates facing inward when being carried.  Pippa doesn't quite have enough head control to face outward in the K'tan.  She fights getting into the carrier so much that I can't get her in without T's help.  When we get her in the K'tan she bangs her head against my collar bone and it hurts both of us.

Pippa looks like she is playing the trombone here.

Sleep:  We've moved Pippa up to the large swaddle size after we realized she was entirely stuffed into the medium swaddle and couldn't move her legs at all - she was like a little mummy!

Pippa is moving around in her sleep more and sometimes gets her feet caught in the crib slats and it wakes her up.

Pippa doesn't hum anymore while she sleeps.  She is also losing her most obvious sleep cue of a huffy sigh.  More and more often her sleep cues are red eyes and being whiny.

I should put Pippa down when she is asleep, but she is just too sweet.  So I hold her and I don't even feel guilty about it.

Eating:  Pippa still loves to nurse and I love nursing her.  It's a win-win.  I feel SO strongly about breastfeeding.  When I was pregnant I was like "Yeah, I'll breastfeed Pippa" but I was also worried about being a human pacifier.  But now I am such a HUGE proponent of breastfeeding. Nursing is about so much more than just eating.  It's about nutrition and bonding and comforting and feeling safe and loved.  I'm pretty sure I'll do another blog post just about breastfeeding, I love it so much.

Honestly, I don't even mind when Pippa comfort sucks.  It's amazing and wonderful that I can give that comfort to her.

Is there anything sweeter in the world than a baby in a milk coma?  I think not.  This is the pouty face she usually pulls when she's asleep but I want to get her to eat just a bit more and she doesn't want to.  Sometimes (like in this photo) she does it spontaneously.  

I've been dreamfeeding Pippa around 10 pm every night just before I go to sleep.  I think it really does help her sleep longer.  When I don't dreamfeed her she wakes up hungry around 12:30 am but when I do dreamfeed her she lasts until 2:30 am.

Pippa coos and smiles so much when she's done eating.  She's still got those gorgeous blue eyes, but somedays they look more grey.

Even though I love nursing Pippa it isn't always beautiful and peaceful.  She was chewing on my nipple for several weeks, but that went away after we got her tongue and lip ties revised (MUCH more on that later).

Apparently, Pippa didn't want hugs that day.

Pippa still poops almost every time she eats.  Lately she's really been straining and fussy while she's trying to poop while she eats.  So she's still on but pulling around and whining and crying.  It is kind of sad.

Check out her eyelashes, cheeks, pouty bottom lip, and milk mustache!

We've gotten into a pretty good schedule of:
7:30 am wake and eat
10:20 am eat
1:15 pm eat
4:15 pm eat
7:00 pm eat
7:45 pm sleep
10:00 pm dreamfeed
2:30 am grunt awake and eat
4:30 am grunt awake
6:00 am sleep in bed with us

Naps happen usually about 45 minutes after every time she eats

Pippa in a dress I wore as a baby!

The Superficial:  Pippa is slowly but surely growing more hair of an undetermined color.  You can see it here.  Sometimes it looks blonde, sometimes brown, and sometimes even hints of red. 

Pippa's "stork bites" birthmark on the back of her neck sometimes look like they are fading and sometimes they look as red as ever.  Pippa definitely has the P family cheeks  aka awesomely full cheeks.  

This month I discovered Pippa's neck rot.  That's what we call her neck fold that gets red and full of lint / drool / milk.  It gets pretty smelly, too.  We've been washing it and drying it and putting aquaphor on it and while that has helped, it hasn't gone away.

Visitors:  My dad came to visit for a week.  An upcoming post on that, I promise.  My dad planned his trip so he could be here when T blessed Pippa in church.

Out and About:  I took Pippa with me when I went to vote.  She was all bundled up because when T went to vote earlier that morning he had to wait in line for three hours and half of that time was outside. We didn't have to wait outside, though we did have to wait an hour and a half!  I'm glad it was only that long because I was nervous that Pippa would want to eat but I wouldn't want to lose my place in line and there wasn't really a good place to feed her.  Luckily she slept the entire time so it was a non issue.

We went to Thanksgiving at my cousins house about half an hour away.  I fed her twice while we were there and she was so good the entire time.  There were seven kids there under the age of seven so as you can imagine, it was a pretty lively place.  Pippa was just wide eyed at all the excitement.  We left Thanksgiving a bit early because Pippa was overstimulated and T had to leave the next morning (and I had to drive him to the church) at 4:30 am to help with Hurricane Sandy clean up in NJ.  So, I was a single parent again for two days while T was knocking down walls.  The first day went okay, but the second day was rough and I didn't even ever get a chance to change out of my pajamas.  I guess that's how it goes some days.  I'm glad that T went though.  He's a great guy.  (A post from T about the clean up will go up on Tuesday.)

Things I'm Loving:  How wispy her hair looks in the water when we bathe her.  It's like algae in a lake.  That doesn't sound so cute, but it that's how her hair moves in the water and it really is cute.

I really love her sweet, soft, cool breath on my face when I hold her while she's sleeping.

I don't have any good photos of it, but I love that sometimes she sleeps like T:  one leg straight and one leg bent up.

Pippa smiles all the time now and sometimes the way she wakes us up in the morning is just by cooing for five or ten minutes.  She's not so happy to be awake in this photo, though!

Other Things:  We had a blanket around the newborn head insert in her carseat to keep Pippa's head straight instead of slumped over.  We had to take it out this month because her is too big for it!

This photo is not staged.  T really did fall asleep like that after getting Pippa to sleep.  He slept like that for around 20 minutes.  She really wore him out.

We also had to move the carseat straps up again.  That's two positions up from where they were when Pippa was born.

Pippa opens her hands now instad of having "fists of justice" at all times.  ("Fist of Justice" is what T calls it when her hand is totally clenched tight)

One time when I was holding Pippa she got her fingers in my mouth and was totally exploring.  I was laughing so hard and trying not to accidentally close my mouth on her hand.  I think we both secretly enjoyed that experience.

T jiggling Pippa to sleep.  The pillow is propped up to block the sun.  We leave the curtains open to help her know it's daytime, but the sun shines right on her crib.  So the pillow blocks the sun that would shine in her eyes.

Pippa is putting her hands to her mouth all the time now.  This one is in her sleep.

And a video from the same time:

Pippa had a rough couple of weeks in her third month:

• November 3 we got her tongue tie clipped.  
• November 9th we went to the pediatrician to get a vaccination that they were out of at her two month appointment.  She didn't even cry when she got the shot.  We came home and she ate then took a nap.  Then she woke up screaming from the nap, which she never does.  I couldn't calm her down, she didn't need a diaper change and didn't want to eat so I started checking her over.  The leg that got the shot was red, hot, hard, and swollen.  And judging by the amount of screaming, hurt quite a bit.  I gave her some infant tylenol but that didn't help.  At that point I was almost crying, too.  So I called T and told him to come home then I called the pediatrician on call (because it was after hours) who said that a shot reaction wasn't unusual and to give her more tylenol, feed her in a dark room, and put a cool washcloth on her leg.  I gave her more tylenol, T gave Pippa a blessing, and eventually (two hours after she started screaming) she quieted down and fell asleep.  Her leg was hard and swollen and tender to the touch the whole next day.  I can't believe that the Pediatrician never said mentioned anything at any point about possible reactions to immunizations!  And this wasn't anywhere near her first immunization!  
• November 11 Pippa started having diarrhea that lasted for three weeks.
• November 13 we got Pippa's lip tie lasered off.  (I promise a whole post about the lip and tongue tie stuff.)

In the waiting room just before we got Pippa's lip tie fixed.

Pippa's sweater got stuck on her head when we were taking it off.  I think it looks hilarious.  Like a giant chef's hat or something.

When Pippa is lying down if we pull her by the arms she takes her head up with the rest of her body (ie her neck is strong enough to do that now).

Obviously, when Pippa cries we respond and try to soothe her, but I also think her cry face is kinda cute.  Her about to cry face is much cuter than her crying face, but I haven't been able to snap a photo of that one.

Pippa isn't really a snuggler, but a few times she's laid her head on my shoulder and it is the sweetest!

And a random note, just marginally related to Pippa:  The toilet has started making a sound when it is flushed and it sounds like the sounds Pippa makes when she is waking up from a nap.  I heard it for three days in a row then mentioned it to T a few days later and he confirmed it.  We both thought we were imaging crazy things so it was nice to know that I wasn't the only one who always peeked in on Pippa after using the restroom.