Tuesday, June 23, 2015

A Letter to Elise at 3 Months





My precious girl, how I love you and your sweet smiles! This month has come with bigger smiles, more coos, better sleep, and so much happiness! I'm starting to feel rested which is nice. You interact more which your brother absolutely loves! My favorite times of day are when you are awake, we're at home, and we can all play together. Carter loves hiding and having you find him. If I find him he'll tell me, "No, sissy find Carter!" I carry you to where he is and hold you so you are peeking over at him. He giggles every time. He also loves holding your hand, giving you your pacifier, holding you, rocking you, singing to you, and shoving things in your hands so you can feel them. I made the mistake of leaving you in the living room with him while I switched laundry over. I heard you grunting and went running back in to find Carter laying on the ground rolling you onto his chest. You were fine, just not too pleased that he rolled you around. You are so freakin tough! Carter will roll you around or accidentally bump you with a toy and you hardly cry at all. He rolled over and slapped you in the face one day and you didn't even cry. You just gave him the stink eye. I'd say that is going to suit you well throughout your childhood as a little sister!


Carter is all about you right now and loves everything you do except cry, he hates it when you cry. At the beginning of the month he went through a jealous patch for a couple of weeks where he didn't want me holding you pretty much ever. I'd take a nap with you on my chest at naptime but when I heard him wake up I'd sneak you into the Pack N Play so he wouldn't know. I think how much you love him helped him kick the jealousy to the curb. You always smile for him and almost always stop crying when he soothes you. When you see his face you give him the biggest, goofiest gummy grins. Whenever he's around you track him and watch him with interest. He asks to pet you and then sweetly rubs your head or your belly, it cracks me up!



You are so sociable and it's the best! When you are crying and hear my voice you instantly get quiet and listen to figure out where I am. You'll turn your head to locate me. It's so sweet. Any time you're awake and look up to see me, you smile. You do this giant open mouthed smile with your tongue moving around which has me convinced you will laugh soon. You even make noises while you are doing your big smile that sound like the start of a laugh that just can't quite get going. You make adorable little noises and coo, mostly when you're looking at someone's face. My favorite sound you make is goo. If I repeat back to you the noises you make you get really excited and continue talking. If I stick my tongue out at you, you mimick me and stick yours out at me. You also really like to blow bubbles with your spit which Carter thinks is hilarious! When you have your pacifier you will actually spit it out to smile. Sometimes you'll just lazily let it fall out of your mouth and still suck the very tip of it while smiling and hamming it up! Something else funny with your pacifier is that sometimes when we put it in your mouth you make choking sounds like it's being rammed down your throat. It cracks me up every time!


Before you were born I totally thought your nickname would be Ellie Kay. Then you arrived and I spent pretty much the entire first month of your life calling you sissy. Sometimes I even call you Sissy Lee on accident, I think because my mom calls me Bissy Lee. This month I've been calling you mostly Elisey Leesers, Leesey Leesers, or Leesey Leese. I have a song I sing that Carter loves to dance to which goes like this:

Elisey Leesers,
Leese, Leese, Leese.
Elisey Leesers,
Leese, Leese, Leese
Leesey Leesers, Leesey Leesers
Leesey Leesers, 
Leese, Leese, Leese 


You move around a lot, especially when you are working on putting yourself to sleep. You roll to your side quite frequently and often sleep on your side. You haven't rolled all the way over much, but I think that has more to do with not getting enough practice than not being ready. You'll get almost rolled over and start crying so Carter comes to the rescue rolling you the rest of the way, sometimes even by pushing your head. Like I said, he's not super gentle! You've rolled from back to stomach when propped up on a pillow a couple of times. You push yourself around a lot with your legs and will push yourself around until you've moved 90 degrees. Your legs are so strong! You like to kick off the side of the bathtub and also like to stand. If we put you up on your legs you push yourself up and bear weight on your legs, often times even on your tippy toes!


Speaking of bathtime, some days you hate it and cry the entire time. Other days you love it kicking and splashing around, not crying until I get you out and you're cold. I've discovered you prefer taking a bath with your brother. If I give you a quick bath before his by yourself it's hit or miss whether you cry. If you take a bath with Carter you don't cry at all. So we've been doing your baths with him. It still makes me a little nervous due to the incident a while back when he poured water on your face but he's been so good with you ever since!


Man are you determined! You just keep working and working until you get what you want. You suck your fist and sometimes your thumb. You grasp things like toys and rattles. Carter loves to hand you leaves for you to grab and feel when we're outside. You like to play with your hands and move around a lot. When you are on the floor or in your bouncer your legs and arms are going pretty much the entire time!


Now to talk about the big one, nighttime sleep! You've come so far this month. You always have a long stretch of sleep first thing at night, going 4-4.5 hours. Your longest stretch was 5.5 hours and it was crazy awesome! I'm talking last feeding at 10 pm and then sleeping until 2 or 3 most nights. Before you'd have one long stretch and then only sleep for 2 hours at a time after that. Now you typically have 2 long stretches at night, only waking 1 or 2 times a night. You are still sleeping in our room in the Pack N Play. I figure I'll just know when it's time to switch you to the crib in your room. I just haven't felt the need to do that yet. I like having you in our room so I wake up to you grunting and moving around before you even wake up and cry. You go to sleep so well. I just lay you down whether you're asleep already, partially asleep, or seemingly wide awake and you put yourself to sleep wonderfully. We had to sleep train your brother and it was horrible. I'm so glad we haven't had to do that with you! You will sleep in your crib. One night I even had you asleep in your crib and Carter in his bed at 8 pm when your daddy got home from running an errand. It didn't last long as you woke up. You don't go down for the night until 10 or 11. I've tried putting you down at 8 and you'll sleep for a while but are always up again for your witching hour. Starting at 9 pm pretty much on the dot you get almost colicky, crying and crying. It is so hard to soothe you and it seems like what works one night never works the next. Some days daddy gets you soothed some days I do. It's always a toss up for who and what will work. It can be frustrating and seems to me that you are overtired but will wake up from being asleep to do it so who knows. Rather than put you to bed with Carter we just hold you and let you snuggle on our chests until we go to bed. It's lovely but I know we'll have to transition away from that soon.

You do such a great job of napping on the go! We go on a playdate or outing every morning and you sleep the whole time most days. Normally you wake up right before lunchtime so I can nurse you before making Carter and my food. A lot of the time you are awake for part of Carter's naptime. I love getting to play with you and have some one-on-one time with you! While you nap during Carter's naptime I lay you on my chest to sleep. Then when I lay down for a short nap we sleep together. It is so nice to have snuggle time just the 2 of us! You usually wake up a little bit before Carter which works out great because I can nurse you before he wakes up. Your longest awake stretch is usually after naptime during dinner while daddy's home. If we're home and you nap in your crib Carter loves watching you on the monitor and will say, "I check on sissy!"
Clothing wise you now wear 3 month and 3-6 month clothes with a few 0-3 month items still in the mix. You have a ton of 3 month clothes. So much so I had to rearrange your dresser drawers to get it all to fit! I hope you wear them for a while. All of your outfits are just so cute! Carter enjoys it when you wear something that he also wore. I'll pull up a picture of him in it so he can see it. It's crazy to me because you look so much like him but at the same time nothing like him! You wear size 1 diapers at night. I've switched to cloth diapers during the day. Our Bum Genius diapers work great but the Alva baby diapers are still too big around your legs so you have accidents in them. I weighed you and measured you at home so it's not super accurate and I don't have percentiles. I had you at 11.4 pounds and 26 inches.
Elise, I love you so much! I'm so grateful to spend every day with you! At this point with Carter I was back at work and it was so hard! I'm so glad I have the opportunity to snuggle with you during the day and nurse you for all of your meals. I've only pumped a few times so I could go on a date with daddy or volunteer at a charity event. You are a good girl and take a bottle but I know you prefer to nurse and the crazy thing is that you eat faster nursing! You are an efficient eater taking on average 3 minutes per side to eat! I can't believe you are already a quarter of a year old! I love you so much and feel so lucky to have another month of all day cooing, snuggling, nursing, and love with you!


Now on to Daddy:
Three months old already, its so hard to believe! It is fun watching you grow in all of these different ways. You have recently started being very liberal with your smiles and it is so fun to make you smile. You have attempted to laugh several times, but are just not quite there yet.

Soon you will be, and then it will be onto the next mile stone! Your brother is still very much smitten with you, and I am sure will be for years to come. You two will have so much fun running around and playing together.

We have also noticed that you are much gentler with Harper, more willing to pet and touch, not grab and pull! Carter tugged and pulled her fur from almost the get go! I am sure Harper will appreciate that. Skippy has made it clear that he prefers non mobile children such as babies, and will allow you to push on him and lay next to him when I am holding you.

You are such a happy girl, and I cannot wait to see you grow into the next stage of life, and see what kind of sweet little girl you will be!

Love you!




2 comments:

  1. Very good pictures. She sure does respond to Carter, doesn't she?

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