Five Wide

Recently I wrote that if every being in our house is asleep at once, we are all in the room together. Cold weather makes this practice even more amusing because everyone wants to snuggle. When Dave turned out the lamp last night, our sleeping situation was as follows. Dave on the oustide edge of the bed, then Georgia, then me, then Gypsy, then Ella in her little co-sleeper. Jewel was asleep in the middle of the dog bed in the floor. I told him we were sleeping five wide.

Ella acheived a milestone I wasn't looking forward to this week. She managed to roll over during the night while wearing the harness. I was really counting on that harness keeping her less mobile for a while longer because I'm not ready to move her to her own room yet. She still fits in the the co-sleeper and is no where near the weight limit, but I won't be able to keep her in there once she's flipping and flopping because there is not enough room for that business. Sigh. She's growing so fast. Also, as a result of realizing she can roll over while wearing the harness, she's been waking up increasingly more often to practice this new skill. One reason the 4 - 7 month time period is so sleepless is because they reach a plethora of developmental milestones during that time and they have a tendency to obsess about them until they've mastered them. We had gradually gotten back to one waking per night after she finally rolled from back to tummy. However, since she rolled over in the harness on Sunday night, she has woken up two or three times a night and I firmly believe that it's just to practice rolling over because that's what she's trying to do when I wake up. I find myself reminiscing about the magical few weeks that she slept through the night, but I do enjoy the little bit of extra snuggle time we get when she nurses in the middle of the night. They are only little babies for such a short time, I wouldn't dare wish it away - even for sleep.

We had a very exciting happening this morning. When I left for work, she waved goodbye to me!! It was so cute. She is in the phase where she is trying to copy everything we do, and it seems she finally figured how to wave! We are also teaching her sign language, and I've seen her attempt to sign "milk" back at me. I know that she understands a few signs (milk, diaper change, all done, and cat), but I'm not expecting to see her sign until after 7 months or so when her hands are more coordinated. This is an exciting time period, providing even further proof that God is an amazing engineer of the human body and mind. If you doubt that, just observe the minute to minute transformation of a newborn baby into a walking, talking little person within about a year's time. It's astounding, and I know that science explains the working of the brain and child development and all that jazz, but even so, it took a master craftsman to create it.