Cora is 3 months old! And she is just bigger, more alert, and more like a little person every day...it is amazing. I weighed her on our home scale the other night and she came to exactly 13 lbs. Probably not the most accurate, but it's approximate. Her next doctor's appointment isn't until she is 4 months, so we're just going to have to wait until then for her exact measurements.
As for physical appearance...Her hair is still a light brown and in some light more blond looking. It is about 2 inches long on the top, but short and growing in the front and sides, then longer in the back. Some of the longer hairs occasionally look wavy to me, but at this length it's mostly straight. Her eyes are still a dark blue, but lighter blue than before. Her skin is a beautiful, smooth, somewhat olivey color with hardly a blemish. Her nose still has a bit of a reddish color with tiny faint white spots, like when she was born. Her smile is wide and, of course, gummy, and sometimes with her tongue sticking out. When she is interested in something or surprised, her eyebrows tilt up in the middle. All of her facial expressions are (of course to us) the cutest thing we've ever seen.
She was not feeling particularly smiley during our photo shoot, but look how chubby those cheeks and thighs are getting!
Cora has gotten onto a pretty regular "routine" in the last week or so. Before that we had a good routine as well, then we traveled to Oregon for a week and she was waking up a little bit earlier than at home. And then in the last week, as I've started back to work, we have all settled into a fairly regular day. Here is how it goes...
Cora wakes up sometime between 6:30 and 7:30am and she greets us with a huge "good morning" smile when we peek our faces over the crib railing into her view. I feed her and either snooze a little more (if it's early and I take her into my bed to snuggle) or we start getting ready for the day. We'll get her dressed and she will stay awake and happy playing until about 8:30 to 8:45am. I feed her again and she typically will fall asleep right afterwards. I sit down and start working at my desk around 9am. Cora will nap anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours in the morning and will want to eat again between 11am and 12pm. Neil's mom, Rita, has graciously come to stay with us and take care of Cora during the work day this month, so they get to hang out while I'm working. I'll take a break for lunch and to feed Cora then sometimes we'll go for a walk. Sometimes I'll feed her again around 1pm, and then again around 3pm, for 2 or 3 total feedings during the work day. Not bad!
Between eating times, Cora will be awake playing for up to 1.5 hours and will nap in 30 minutes to 1 hour increments. She has become so much more interactive while awake and clearly likes doing certain things. Most of all she loves watching the ceiling fan, lying on her play mat with her lion and elephant to look at, grabbing the rings and pulling them to her mouth, looking at books as we read to her, pretty much looking at anything near and far (pictures, puppets, light fixtures, anything you put in front of her or show her). You can just see her eyes and mind soaking up everything. Although she uses both hands, she seems to be right hand dominant, chewing and sucking on her right hand, using her right hand more often, etc. She is now kicking her legs a lot and lifting them up until they are straight up in the air...she can do better leg lifts than me! Her neck strength has improved immensely as well to the point of being able to hold up her head most all of the time with only a few wobbles (I still support it most of the time though just in case). When lying down she loves to swivel her head from left to right and back and forth, just looking at everything that she can.
I finish work around 5pm and she is usually ready to eat again. Evenings are usually when she'll show a little bit of a fussy side, but she can usually be entertained or calmed by nursing or her monkey pacifier. She'll nurse a couple times or Neil will feed her a bottle and she will maybe nap once, but then around 8pm we get her ready for bed. Every few evenings we'll give her a bath (which she loves!) a little bit before bed.
I'm not really sure how we started this bedtime routine, but it just kind of started happening and it seems to work for us, so we keep doing it! Our bed time routine involves sitting in the rocking chair in her room with only the nightlights on. She'll nurse on both sides for a while as I sing nighttime songs to her (from camp) and she'll start to fall asleep. Part way through I wrap her up in her fleece swaddle sleep sack and rock and sing to her some more until she falls asleep. Lately she has wanted to suck on her monkey pacifier as well as she falls asleep, but then spits it out. With her sleep sheep playing stream sounds, I lay her in her crib and slowly sneak out of her room. Usually anywhere from 1 to 3 times she will wake up, make some grunting noises where we need to go in and rock her for a minute or so before she is out for the night. It usually takes 30 minutes to an hour for the whole process. I really don't want to brag about her sleeping, especially to my mom friends with little ones, but Cora has been rocking it with 9-10 hour nights between feedings. Who knows how long it will last, but we'll just enjoy it for now.
All in all, she is a sweet, mild mannered, patient, and happy little girl! Here are some of my favorite 3 month photos of Cora Rilee Johnson. (Grandma Rita/Coco was trying to make her smile by dancing around...notice the photo where she is like, "What are you crazy people doing?!). So funny!
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