End Fourth Trimester

Elisa had her 3 month birthday yesterday, which we celebrated with our monthly cupcakes from Lark, my favorite bakery in the neighborhood where I always eat way too many pecan bar samples every time I go in there. Yum. Of course, the only way to have her taste the cupcakes is for me to eat them. This is a good tradition. Yesterday we got the autumnal pumpkin flavor and our classic vanilla favorite.

I've been waiting for the end of the first three months. Not that I haven't enjoyed taking care of her and seeing her grow in the newborn phase, and I often really miss how little she was when she was first born. But everyone kept telling me - hang in there, the first three months are the hardest and my doctor even termed it the "fourth trimester." I had this glorious view of what this next period would be like, that maybe I would wake up on October 12 and she would be a perfect angel, no crying and fussing or anything. Wrong. Today has been a tough day, probably because I am itching to get more of our stuff packed up but frustrated that she won't seem to nap for more than 20 minutes. I finally got her to take a nap now after a fight with the swaddle blanket. Last week, Paul's mom and grandma came to visit and she was great in the mornings, but totally fussy every evening. It took tons of rocking, swaddling, and shushing to get her in any kind of state to go to sleep. We even had a meltdown episode at our favorite dim sum restaurant. For some reason, Elisa just wouldn't stop crying for the 1 1/2 hours that we were there. We had to take turns taking her outside, and just when we thought we had gotten her calmed down in the car, she started another crying session that lasted the whole way home. Suffice it to say that we won't be going back there anytime soon, unfortunately. So far the end of the fourth trimester has been pretty unremarkable, sadly enough. People were saying, the first three months are the hardest - it'll get easier. Now they're saying things get easier after six months! Hopefully things will get easier soon.

Little Miss Personality

Lately, Elisa has been smiling and cooing to no end. It's such a fun stage that she's getting into. Last week, I brought her to work where we were having a faculty luncheon and she charmed everyone she met, smiling and laughing, sitting quietly while we ate, and then making her exit with a very big poop that leaked onto my hand while I was holding her (luckily, no one else noticed).

I'm seeing some of her personality start to come out, and although she's barely 3 months old, these are my guesses. We'll see if they hold true:

• She's a people person - she loves meeting new faces and smiles at both familiar and unfamiliar people, then gets totally exhausted from the energy it takes to process all of it.
  
• She's determined and a bit stubborn (don't know where she get's this...). This is evident in the way she fights her way out of swaddles, refuses to sleep even if she's really tired, and the vigorous way that she nurses.
• She's vocal and communicative. If she's hungry, she has a specific cry (sounds like, "Aaa. Aaa. Aaa!") and if she's not done quite yet but I try to close up the cafe, she'll let me know right away.
  
• She's a clean freak. If her diaper is the littlest bit dirty, she protests - loudly. Sometimes she cries loudly right before she starts peeing, which we've found out the hard way because it often happens while we're changing her diaper and pee ends up on the changing table and all over her clothes. It seems like she thinks the idea of sitting in her own urine for any amount of time is philistine and unrefined. Maybe she's ready for potty training already!
  
• She's smart. Lately, she's been cooing and babbling, and when you say a word to her, it sounds like she's trying to say it back to you! A word she seems to say a lot sounds like "Ah-go" which I think sounds a lot like "Aiko," the name of our dog and something we say a lot around the house. I'm sure all parents think their children are smart, but she has one particular expression where her brow is furrowed and it looks like she's processing something really complex, like contemplating her philosophy on life outside the womb or solving quadratic equations in her head.

Another parent told me that the 3-6 month period are the "golden months" because babies sleep longer during this time and start to become so cute and interactive. If this is a glimpse of what's to come, then I'm looking forward to it. We're still working on the sleep part of it, but hopefully she'll sleep longer and longer stretches soon.

This is currently my favorite photo of her, which Paul and I both posted on FB so you may have seen it by now! I bought this hat when she was about a week old and didn't think it would ever fit her - it seemed so huge at the time.