Dear Ariani: February 2014

Height: 21 inches (45th percentile)

Weight: 10 pounds, 5 ounces (75th percentile)

[height & weight from January 3rd]

Sleeping Pattern: You always sleep on your tummy. You just won’t have it any other way. At the beginning of the month you were sleeping 7 hours at night consistently and a total of around 16 hours each day (including your night time sleeping). By the end of the month you were sleeping 10 hours every night, from 9:30 p.m. until 7:30 the next morning! Good girl! You have a fussy time each evening, but that has improved greatly from the beginning of the month until the end.

Eating Habits: You ate every three and a half hours during the day. By the end of the month, when you started waking up at the same time every day, your mealtimes were 7:30, 11:00, 2:30, 6:00, and 9:00 and then it’s off to bed.

Personality, etc.: You HATE the car seat! Almost every time we go anywhere you scream for 5-10 minutes before calming down. It’s so frustrating and I feel so terrible for you! I try not to go anywhere during the day if I don’t have to because it’s so bad.

Also, at the beginning of this month you did not like to be put in a baby seat of any kind. But towards the end of the month you started enjoying some time in your little reclining seat. It has two toys that hang down for you to look at - an iguana and a bee - and it’s so fun to watch you smile at them sometimes!

You like being sung to. Sometimes when you’re fussy, if I sing, or if Penny sings, you calm right down. And Penny loves to sing to you. Most of the time it’s Jesus Loves Me but sometimes it’s a song she makes up herself that doesn’t really make sense.

You like your pacifier when you are fussy or tired, but you are still terrible at keeping it in for very long.

Friends: You spend most of your time at home, but outside of that, your best friends are your cousins right now. :)

Anything else: You now have three hemangiomas. Hemangiomas are a type of vascular birthmark. Usually they are bright red and are raised a bit. One of them is on your left bun (hehe!) and was there when you were born. But since your diapers rub on it so much, it actually was irritated and bleeding so much that the raised part is gone and it’s just more of a dark purple mark that seems more like a scar. Another one showed up on your face when you were about two and a half weeks old. It has gradually gotten brighter and is raised now (it wasn’t right away) but hasn’t gotten any bigger… yet. The third one showed up when you were about five weeks old. It is a deep nasal tip hemangioma - meaning it’s on the tip of your nose and is deeper underneath the surface of your skin. It makes the tip of your nose bluish and is just slightly swollen. I am hoping it won’t get any worse and plan to talk to your doctor about it at your next appointment to see what she recommends. But even with your little blue nose, you are beautiful! And I have started to really love the little red one on your cheek. It’s so cute and special!

Photos:

Sister love...