First off, many congratulations to Little Miss Sydney. She's the baby of the month for April at school. We sent in pictures and filled out a questionnaire on her. I'm not sure if she had to give an acceptance speech or anything. She hasn't really commented. So humble.
Over the last couple days, Sydney's baby talk has changed. Previously we were getting a lot of squeals, gurgling, grunts, and something like uh-wooo-a-wuh-wahhh-wooo-aaah. The week before last we heard a few hard "N"s with an inflection that sounded like a "No" but was more like Nu-wah. The last couple days, we've been getting a lot of G's. Gug, Guh, etc. This is where mom jumps in and reminds everyone that I said "Gug" a lot as a baby.
Sadly Sydney wouldn't really talk for mom & dad last weekend. Today she was a regular chatter box.Syd has also started smacking her lips a lot and sticking out her tongue (think Gene Simmons).
In other news the BM clock is at 2 days now. Syd seems to only poop on Thursdays. The question is whether we'll get to next Thursday or not. I should figure out how to set up a poll on this board and we could do some wagering.
Another odd thing that has developed recently is that Sydney seems to be getting very clingy. The teachers at Early Days mentioned it to Meghan one day this past week. For some reason she seems to want to be held more than previously. Today for example, we went over to see the Freedmans and their new baby Maya. Meghan tried to put Sydney on the play mat near Maya and Syd immediately started whimpering and making this horribly upset face. In fact anytime Meghan put her on the floor she did that. Eventually she got tired of holding her and I held her for awhile. Very staring. No talking. No fussing. No flailing. Just quiet staring and looking around. (That isn't how our baby behaves normally.) After awhile she warmed up and returned to her normal self but it was very clear she just wanted to be held.
Spitting up has been in fashion over the past couple weeks. Not sure what's going on there but Syd has been doing more of it in the past few weeks than had been typical. I got hit this evening and had to change pants. ...actually she got my shirt this morning too at least once. Meghan got hit at least once. For her it's a daily event. Once Syd gets a little bigger, we're going to either need a new couch or to figure out how to safely clean the current one. It's fallen victim all too frequently.
Aside from her odd behavior at the Freedmans, today was actually a fantastic day for Sydney. On the way back from the Freedmans, she crashed hard and took a nap. In fact she continued sleeping in her car seat after we got home for at least another hour. After that, Meghan took her for a jog in the jogging stroller. Meghan had her all bundled up in that cute pink bear outfit with the ears. When they got back, I took baby duty while Meghan hopped in the shower. Syd seemed to have gotten a little cold on the jog and was really quiet until she warmed up. (Her hands and cheeks were noticeably cold) We just watched tv, I held her hands, and she didn't do or say much. Once she warmed back up though she clearly wanted to play and launched into some kind of crazy baby mode. We had her laying on her play mat and she was baby talking, flailing, grinning, rolling on her side, etc. I've never seen her exert that much energy or show that much excitement for that long of a duration. It was like someone slipped her a couple cups of coffee or something.
In the end she got fussy, got fed, and then had to go to bed but overall I think she had a fabulous day. Very little crying. Lots of smiles. Sydney's arms seem to have minds of their own. When you watch Sydney sit and play, you quickly see that she has good control over her arms and hands. She can reach out and grab anything. She can put things in her mouth as long as it doesn't require rotating them in some way. BUT... when she's not focusing on using her arms, they seem to have a mind of their own. It starts out with Sydney looking at the TV or you or whatever and then her arms pump up and down with her hands slapping her knees. Then one will wonder upward and pass in front of her face. When she sees it, her attention will snap to her hand making her go cross eyed for a second and then usually she'll bring the hand in and stick it in her mouth. It's kind of comical. "Where did that hand come from?" "Oh that's my hand!" ...ok along those lines I think I mentioned once before the odd rhythmic thing she does with her arms and legs while Meghan is nursing her. If not, basically Syd is laying on one side and whichever side is up is subject to some weird phenomenon. It used to be that her upper leg would just kick into the air and move up and down slowly while she was eating. Occasionally the arm would get involved to. At one point Meghan was afraid she was going to get kicked in the face. Since then the leg has phased out some but the arm is now in full swing waving around and grabbing whatever it comes in contact with. Tonight she actually grabbed Meghan's nose twice. It's funny to watch because it's obviously completely involuntary.
One last observation to add. When Sydney is ready to go to bed she starts getting fussy. The weird thing though is that she stops making eye contact with us when she hits that point. Before that it's all smiles, eye contacts, play with me, play with me, play with me. Afterwards she will look in any other direction she can to avoid eye contact.
What a crazy baby.