Ella at 5 Weeks

Ella turned 5 weeks on Saturday and here's an update on what's new with her.

She seems to have a lot less jerky arm movements now, and moves her arms a lot more calmly. She always tries to suck her hands and put them in her mouth. I feel like it won't be too much longer until she can actually suck on her fingers or thumb. When she's hungry she'll frantically try to stuff her whole hand in her mouth as if that's where the food is from :).

She looks very thoughtful and alert, and will study our faces for several minutes at a time. Light streaming in from windows catches her eye and she'll focus on curtains or blinds where the light is coming in.

She is much more receptive to being swaddled and we're swaddling her almost every time we put her down to sleep. Morning is definitely her favorite time of the day, she starts each day in a really good mood and that's when we get our smiles from her. We put her in bed between us in the morning and enjoy her cheerfulness then when Steve leaves for work, she and I go back to sleep for a few hours in bed together. It is such an awesome feeling having her curled up next to me sleeping and she really looks like a peaceful little angel.



Every day we have play time and tummy time and she can lift her head up on her tummy after a few minutes of concentrating. Here she is during playtime yesterday.




We are somewhat getting into a routine at night now, and last night Ella slept from 11:45pm to 5:20am. She takes a nap while we eat dinner, then when she wakes up I feed her and we give her a bath. Then Steve puts her to sleep and we wake her up around 10 to eat for the last time for the night. We're still working on it but the past few days she has slept for a really good stretch and it feels like we might actually be getting close to consistency - or at least a semblance of it.

For baths, we've moved her into the infant tub up in the bathroom and while I won't go so far as saying that she LIKES bath time, she no longer cries throughout which is definite progress! Some pics of her in the tub - and no, these will not be on my keychain 10 years from now :)...







Glenn came this past weekend and got to spend some quality time with the sweet girl




And John discovered that Ella is a 'hat girl'