Johanna through the sleepless haze

Our little Johanna is so much fun. She leans in to catch your eye and when it is caught a huge smile erupts over her whole face. Hanna likes to play and investigate. She is not satisfied to be laying on her back any longer. When we lay her down on her play gym she flips right over onto her tummy and pushes her chest off of the ground. Most of the time we put her in a sitting position and she happily reaches for toys and turns them over in her hands. Everything winds up tested by her mouth at some point during the play. Hanna will frequently lean right over and chew on her toe, then sit back up without too much effort. We pulled out the exer-saucer and she loved it instantly. Of all of our kids she has really investigated all of the toys it has to offer. The first day she hit the tractor's button and lights and music started. She was so excited and swung her arms around over and over in an attempt to make it happen again. She is getting quite good at it.

She is still a delight on the changing table. She smiles and holds her toes while we clean her up. When it is time to close the diaper she releases one foot as I do the one side and then she releases the other. She is happy to hold a toy, most usually a little purple bear, during the process. Just yesterday though she kept turning over and I had flashes of big sister's as infants diaper wrestling matches. For now it is not a struggle. It has gotten rather messy though. Since we started vegetables and fruits Hanna has had lots of little and a few big diaper leaks and the changing process includes an outfit change too.

A big change these past few weeks has been moving into her bedroom. I still haven't hung anything on the walls but I will. I finally did get black-out inserts for her curtains and we began putting her to sleep in her crib. She had been looking huge in the bassinet so it was shocking to see her small again in the comparatively huge crib. Sadly though she didn't do much sleeping in the crib.

Ever since March and the debacle of rice cereal, followed by an ear infection and her first two teeth, Hanna hasn't slept. She got into a pattern of waking up every 3 hours. And her naps were terribly inconsistent as well. It is absolutely exhausting. It is worse than newborn sleeplessness. With a newborn you have extra help and lower expectations, plus the opportunity to nap. but with a 7 month old I am working and engaged in all of the regular household responsibilities. It feels like having a very dysfunctional case of ADD, just completing a sentence was challenging. This blog has suffered a bit as well as every project I intend to get done, but then there is Hanna's smile making everything doable. For both of our sakes, really the whole family's sake, we are working on getting Hanna on a sleep schedule. We are paying closer attention to her natural rhythms and making every attempt to getting her to sleep at a  regular time. The bedtime routine and overnight sleeping is getting much better. In fact last night she slept 10 hours straight. The naps are still erratic but with another weeks attention I hope it becomes a good pattern.

 
She has been a busy baby this June, with many events to attend. Plus Hanna got to spend some time being snuggled by Grandma Kate and share her smile while she visited from Colorado. Hanna has also discovered the fun of the pool. Our last few pool excursions have included tons of happy splashing and wild blinking away the water. It is shaping up to be an amazing summer and I am looking forward to experiencing it with the benefit of a good night's sleep.