Swaddle free and other new tricks!

It has been a long time since I blogged! Scarlett has been moving and shaking and developing at a very rapid pace! I've been working a lot so it almost seems as if I'm missing it. Paul assures me that I spend a lot of time with her, but as quickly as she is changing, it seems like I must have missed something! The biggest change in the last week is that we've (finally) weaned Scarlett off of the swaddle. I can't take any of the credit -- on Friday Paul was home with her and was determined to say goodbye to the swaddle. Last week she had been getting out of it no matter what we did, velcro and all. She would fall asleep with it on and wake up with her upper half out of it and looking very proud of herself. I guess in a way she was weaning herself off of it. In any case, she was napping well without it so Paul decided to try it at night. First night without the swaddle she slept 11 1/2 hours!! She kindly slept until almost 10 am on Saturday at which point we finally had to wake her up! In general it is going really well. The only trick is that it takes a really long time for her to fall asleep. We're still putting her in a sleep sack, but even with that she crawls all over the crib, sits up, pulls herself up on the crib, kneels to play with her rain forest toy etc. until she is finally so exhausted that she can't hold her head up anymore. Regardless, once she is asleep she sleeps really well. We've had to wake her up every day since.

Her personality is still just great. She has such a sense of humor. In the last week she has taken up head banging, discovered all sorts of new facial expressions, and has started tilting her head to one side when she is smiling really big (sort of a flirtatious thing). She is also trying to clap her hands and is constantly doing this old man thing where she covers her gums with her lips and smacks them together. She is also amazingly resilient no matter how terrible a situation we put her in. On Sunday we went to a polo match in Poolesville, MD. I know, sounds strange. Paul's friend Frank invited us to the match and put us on the VIP list (tent, free food and drink) so we decided it would probably be the only time in our lives we would go to a polo match, so why not? Well, a good reason not to go would have been the weather... It was nearly 100 degrees and horrible humidity. Scarlett decided to skip her morning nap that day so we were out in 100 degree heat for 3 hours with no naps... Despite having every possible reason to fuss and cry, she was perfect the entire time. She wasn't quite as vivacious as she normally is, but she was still friendly with people and never fussed once. I was particularly surprised since she was stuck in our laps rather than crawling around.

Paul and I have been continuing to give Scarlett new foods and are now introducing spices. Her favorite appears to be the sweet potatoes and cinnamon combination. We were at Spider Kelley's last week where I gave Scarlett a little taste of the guacamole that came with my meal. Next thing I know, Scarlett is scarfing it all down! They had to bring me another side of it so I could actually have some myself. We still haven't really found any food she doesn't like. She has also had chunks of fruit, fruit-yogurt melts, and little cheerio-type things. She is doing pretty well with all of it but we typically have to keep stuffing the solid foods back in her mouth until she finishes them. She LOVES drinking out of a cup. We are only brave enough to give her ice water, but that is about her favorite thing in the world anyway. She has pretty much mastered the Nuby cup but she thinks she is quite proficient at a regular cup too. Let's just say she isn't quite as good at it as she thinks she is.

In not so happy news, Scarlett has a staph infection! She has what we thought was a pimple/white head on her neck. She has had it before, but it went away and we didn't think anything of it because we knew that baby acne was a common issue. When Paul picked her up from daycare on Monday, Betsie said she thought it could be a staph infection. We still figured it was nothing, but we called the doctor anyway. They told us to try a warm compress for 5-10 minutes and put some ointment on it but if it didn't go down significantly by morning to bring her in. Paul ended up taking her into see Dr. Jasani who confirmed that it was an infection and prescribed her some ointment. She has the larger spot on her neck and another small spot in her ear. It is no big deal but they had us keep her out of daycare today just to be safe. Her spots are already almost healed but it is sort of noteworthy since we have been amazingly lucky to avoid health issues to this point.

This weekend will be Scarlett's first Independence day but more importantly, Jacy, Joel, and Liam are coming to visit! They get into town on Saturday morning and are staying until the following Friday night. We have to share them with Jacy's family, but we can't wait to see them and get the kids together again! I haven't seen Liam since he was 1 month old!!! Time has flown by...

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