The week of insanity

The past few days have been quite busy for Tomoe.  We went for a long walk on Friday, she spent the day with her mom and grandparents on Father’s Day, and she went to a baby exercise class on Monday.  So much activity stimulates her mind so much that she gets extremely restless at night.  Basically, she’s been absolutely crazy.  It’s been difficult to get her to sleep, and my wife is suffering from a lack of sleep on the days that she works.

She’s in the last week before she turns 5 months old.  How’s she doing?  First, she’s been spending a lot of time on her stomach, which helps her strengthen her arms, neck and back.  She’s gaining very good control of her head and neck and hasn’t been wobbly for quite some time.  She’s able to push herself up with her arms fully extended now.  With all this strengthening and straightening, she’ll be sitting up on her own in no time.

Her “talking” is becoming more varied.  She says “ba,” “ma,” and “pthpthpthpthpthpthp” now.  She also responds to our voices very well.  She smiles when we speak to her, and if she’s not looking at us, she’ll look when we call her.

One thing that we don’t have is a good routine.  Every night seems different for bedtime.  It really depends on how her day went.  I’ve been able to get her to sleep tonight, though.  Hopefully, she’ll stay asleep until morning.

More rolling and some mobility

Tomoe’s ability to roll over is improving quickly.  She can roll from her back to her front in both directions, and she can also roll from her front to her back, although with less frequency.  She doesn’t just roll once, she’ll go from her back to her front to her back to her front, all in one direction.  She’s discovered a form of mobility!

Hello!

Can’t crawl yet.

Big smile while she rolls over on her back.

Tomoe’s first vaccination

Today, Tomoe had her very first vaccination.  What she got is the BCG vaccine (or Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine).  This vaccine is for tuberculosis, and it leaves a rather distinct scar on the arm.

Here’s her arm and the 18 spots.

Tomoe did very well when she got the vaccine.  She made very little sound.  Not even a cry.  She can’t have a bath until tomorrow, though.

This was only round 1 of several rounds of vaccinations.  DPT is next!

The master of rolling over

The past few days have been quite amazing, although slightly frustrating, for Tomoe.

She’s become a master of rolling over from her back to her front.  She does it so quickly now, it’s amazing that only a week ago, she struggled for several minutes trying to do it without success.  Now, whenever she’s on her back, she always wants to flip over.  Unfortunately, this means that when her diaper is being changed, she tries to do it then, too.  She’s incredibly squirmy when being changed.

Her dexterity with her hands has improved drastically recently, as well.  She reaches for things now.  Before, she would only hold things if we put them in her hand.  She also manipulates anything she’s holding, examining it closely.  Just a few minutes ago, she was holding onto my hand and studying it carefully.  She then kept moving my hand away, then close again, then away again, then closer once more, and kept repeating this for about 2 or 3 minutes.  She’s testing what she can do and how everything reacts to what she’s doing.  She’s studying very actively these days.

For the past few days, she’s also been extremely active at night.  She’s constantly moving, kicking and talking.  We want to sleep, but she won’t settle down.  Hopefully, this is just a little phase.  But she’s in a good mood through all of this.

Tomoe’s discovered a game that she loves.  Peek-a-boo!  I often cover her face with her bib, and she gets very excited.  When I lift it from her face, her eyes are big and her mouth is wide open.  She gasps like she’s surprised and very excited.  After several times, I lift her bib only halfway up, and she can anticipate what’ll happen next.  She gasps excitedly and gives a big smile.  She loves it!

From BabyCenter’s website, I can see that her development is on target.  She’s definitely developing a sense of humour.  She laughs a lot these days.  She’s a very happy smiling and laughing baby.  As I’ve said above, she manipulates objects that she holds, and she focuses a lot on objects around her.  She’s very interested in many things.

And now for some pictures!

Sleeping peacefully.

She’s rolling over!

It was a hot, sunny day last Friday, and she got some new sunglasses. But they’re still a bit too big for her.

Here’s a cute picture taken by my wife.

Two gifts, one pleasant, the other not

We received a package in the mail from my aunt.  It has some books, toys and clothes, including a handmade dress and jacket!  Thank you very much!

But we also have another gift.  Tomoe’s started getting diaper rash.  She’s got a nice red butt now.  We have some cream to help with it, but we’ll see how well it works.

In other news, we’ve been talking to my mom and sister using Skype.  Today, I didn’t something a bit different.  I put the computer on the floor and had Tomoe lay on her stomach in front of it.  She put on an interesting show, including rolling over.  She’s getting better at it!  Hearing that I was walking when I was 9 months old makes me wonder how old Tomoe will be when she starts walking.

4 month checkup

Tomoe just had her 4 month checkup.  Basically, she’s healthy.  No problems.  She’s average in weight and length.  Up until now, we’ve only been able to guess about her weight.  Now we know that she’s 6.6 kg, exactly twice her birth weight.  Her length is now 61.2 cm, just 11.2 cm longer than when she was born, but length increases slower than weight.

She was an idol at the clinic, according to my wife.  Everyone wanted to hold her, saying she was like a doll.

Checking babycenter.com, her behaviour and development seems to be right on track.  She should be eating less often, but as the website says, she becomes quite distracted while feeding.  That is certainly true.  It can be difficult to feed her, because she keeps wanting to look around.  She’s also always trying to grab our hands or the bottle while she’s feeding.  It makes her feeding sessions a bit shorter when I do it, because she won’t concentrate on feeding.

She’s also been playing with her hands and feet a lot.  She kicks really hard and she’ll keep doing it repeatedly.  Babies at this age repeatedly do the same motion to test the results.  She’s experimenting!  She’s learning how her body works.  And since she’s testing and playing by herself, she doesn’t need our attention all the time.  She’s becoming a little independent with her playing.

It seems that the behaviours described on babycenter.com are happening to Tomoe about 1 or 2 weeks early.  She’s developing quickly!

Attack of the teething baby

Teething is a very uncomfortable time for babies.  Tomoe’s been going through it for a while now, although no teeth are visible yet.  It’s been getting much stronger lately, though.

She’ll grab anything she can get her hands on and put it in her mouth.  If she can’t find anything, she’ll put her own hands in her mouth.  She sucks on a lot of things and drools.  She’s been using a pacifier a lot.  Another thing she does is if she’s holding someone’s hand, she’ll pull it toward her mouth and bite down.  And boy does she bite hard!  She’s got some power in those jaws.  When her teeth start coming in, we’ll have to be careful so that she doesn’t draw blood from out fingers.

The time that the first tooth comes in varies a lot.  For me, my first tooth didn’t appear until 7 months old.  For my sister, it was at 4 months.  Tomoe’s at 4 months old, and while I can actually see where her teeth are under her gums, they aren’t pushing through yet.  I’m really wondering when her first tooth will appear.

Reaching more milestones

Tomoe is a very happy baby these days.  She’s had so many exciting things happen.  Look at how happy she is!

So happy, she’s blurry!

It was a very exciting supermarket.

Earlier this week, Tomoe visited a child centre in Terrace Mall at Tsujido.  She was able to enjoy meeting other babies and my wife could meet other mothers, including one that lives near us, and another mixed baby’s mother.  It’s great that they can both meet new people around here.

Tomoe’s also tried her first solid food.  While it’s recommended for babies to start eating solid food around 5 months old, we checked to see if she could do it.  And what a success it was!  At first, she had a little difficulty, as she was very unfamiliar with the feeling of eating with a spoon and having non-liquid food in her mouth, but she was soon attacking the spoon voraciously.  She loved it!  She ate some baby food made of rice.

Yummy food!

I want more!

Another big milestone is that she’s finally rolled over.  At first, she rolled over from her stomach to her back earlier this week, but today she rolled over from her back to her front for the first time.  She seems to like laying on the floor now, and she rolls over onto her side quite often.

Trying to run? She’s doing it wrong.

As always, Tomoe is smiling and laughing a lot.  Her laughing has become quite infectious.  She likes laughing at me imitating her laugh, as well as strange noises.

Coming soon are immunizations and her 4 month checkup.

Happy 4 month birthday!

Today, Tomoe is 4 months old.  It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months since she was born.  So much has happened since then.  She’s gone from a sleeping, pooping, peeing and eating machine with no personality to a little girl with a lot of personality.

Lately, she’s been getting quite good at pushing up with her arms, so she can hold her head up much more easily while on her stomach.  This is very important for when she learns to crawl.  She’s also almost rolling over.  She gets about half way before flopping back down on her back.

She’s getting really good at tummy time.

She’s getting more and more interactive these days, as well.  She looks at and follows everything.  She’s tracking left, right, up and down with her eyes, so that’s great.  She’s been manipulating things with her hands, though quite clumsily.  She reaches for toys and holds them while looking at them.  She has one toy that plays music that she especially loves.  She smiles quite a bit for it.

On the topic of smiles, her laugh has finally become more like a laugh.  When she laughed before, it wasn’t really a laughing sound, but now she has a much more natural laugh.  One thing that makes her laugh is if I copy her laugh.  She loves it.

Her eye colour has changed a lot now.  2 weeks ago, it was mostly blue with some hazel mixed in.  Now, it’s mostly hazel, though some blue still shows through.

Lately, Tomoe’s been sleeping a lot.  So, here are some sleeping pictures.

Close up. You can see her hair’s been thinning.

Great pose in her bed.

Sleeping in the bouncer with a new toy by her head.

She fell asleep with her new pacifier in her mouth.