Random Thoughts & Cognitive Development

I've been lax about blogging recently. Mostly because I've been sleeping badly and many days I take a nap when Charlotte naps so that I can have the energy I need for her. Other days, I try to keep the house in order, do errands and keep Philippe and myself reasonably well-fed. Also, I've signed up to write reviews of children's books for Childrenslit.com and have been cramming that work in over the past few weeks.

The Charlotte update is easy--she's really cute, the easiest baby I've ever met and stubborn as a goat when she doesn't want to eat. We've realized in the past few weeks that she has different manners in which she refuses her food. From that, we've been able to identify when she's refusing because of reflux. I've been able, I think, to use that to read her hunger cues better so we typically get one good bottle out of her each day and some strong eating of solid food. We also get a vomit or two, sometimes a healthy projectile. We've been given the okay by our GI RN to try Maalox or Mylanta when we think she's in pain; that might avoid the major reflux episodes.

Developmentally, Charlotte hit some fun milestones in the past week:
--She started really babbling. Da da da da and ppfffffffffffftttt (raspberries). She obviously thinks she's making sense because is you repeat it back to her, she is delighted. I'm working on getting this recorded for an audioblog. Stay tuned.
--She's started playing peek-a-boo (cache-cache), holding up a diaper to hide herself and revealing her face when I say "Where's Charlotte?" Then she giggles like crazy. I've tried to capture this.
--The picture doesn't quite show the game, but you can certainly see her glee.
She's working hard on crawling. We've each seen her take a "step" or two, but she doesn't quite get the hang of it.
--And she's sitting for minutes on end, playing quietly by herself.