You Grow Girl!

Well, there certainly has been a flurry of activity and growth within the last few weeks. For starters, if you haven't already heard, Ellena is sleeping through the night!

That's worth repeating, so here goes, She's sleeping through the night!

How it happened - S just decided one Thursday night to keep working with her and putting her back down in her crib when she woke up. And that was that. I probably wouldn't have had the patience to do that, but S persevered! We have quite a little nighttime routine. We bathe Ellena every other night and after she is changed and a book is read to her, she usually goes right down. There have been a couple of nights when she wanted to stay up for another hour or so (usually related to how "off" her daytime schedule got), but nothing unmanageable.

She's also found her thumb! Yes, she loves chewing and sometimes sucking on her thumb. We attribute this to helping her sleep all night long as well as nap in her Pack 'n Play during the day (previously she wouldn't sleep or nap in either). S took some pictures of Ellena sucking her thumb. I will try to get them up here soon.

Ellena has also been grasping objects lately. Her little fists, previously balled up constantly as though she were wearing tiny boxing gloves, have been relaxed a bit. She occasionally reaches out and grabs her toys and rattles. We've also been using this time to introduce her to new textures and fabrics. So far she's touched objects such her blankets, our clothing, the carpet, and of course, the cats. She loves when we hold her near the felines and allow her feet to feel their bellies.

One funny story from earlier this week happened when Ellena was on her mat playing and Maddie, our female cat, who frequently likes to hang out really close to Ellena, especially when playing, sat down next to her. Well, knowingly or not, she sat on E's open palm and a few seconds later jumped up and relocated a few feet over and sat again. I thought this was a strange exchange until I looked at E's hand only to find it clenched tight and full of Maddie fur! It was as though Maddie sat on a bear trap. Ellena didn't know any better and probably just thought "Hmm, fuzzy".

Another noteworthy development has been her cooing. Ellena surprised us the other day with an entirely new squeal. I captured this in video below where you will hear me speak to her first and she will answer. What she said, I haven't the foggiest, but it's fun just the same. We've had several "conversations" with her and she really seems to be understanding that we're giving her attention.