Mika at 3 Months

My "little" baby weighs in at a hefty 13.5 pounds and is 24" long. She is a solid six-month size, but can wear some three- and nine-month sizes as well.

It took both of us to get on her bib- one of us had to lift up her chins while the other fastened the back.

She looks so goofy with all that hair. I get stopped at the time in public by people asking to touch her hair because they can't believe it's real. A lot of people say it looks like she's wearing a wig.

yep.

She is really social and smiles and gurgles at us when we talk to her. She looooooves Jackson and is always watching what he's doing. She sleeps basically from 9:30ish pm-9:30ish am with one wake-up for a diaper change and feeding around 3:30. She takes a short morning nap and a loooooong afternoon nap (today was 5 hours, but it's usually 3 or 4). Sometimes she'll take a second afternoon nap, sometimes she won't.

She is just like Jackson at that age- wants to be looking at what's going on, her head is always turning this way and that way looking around. She loves:
going outside in the stroller and looking around at the trees and the sky
playing with Jackson
"flying" in the air
peekaboo and other baby games
swinging in the baby swing at the park
looking at her book of baby faces

Daddy letting Mika fly around at the Cheesecake Factory

Mika's milestones don't make any sense. She's not even close to rolling over, but she can sit. Paul got a record fifteen seconds out of her today, but that was a one-time deal, she can usually only do it for about five seconds. I don't think she'll be rolling over until she's four or five months, probably because I almost never have her do tummy time (she HATES it and will just cry).

She goes in the potty almost all the time for #2's (she gives lots of warning farts, so I have plenty of time to get her on it) and when she's on it I sometimes accidentally get pee pee. Just as I hoped, this has completely changed Jackson's hatred of the potty and he will sit on it willingly now. He made the connection of getting "gummies" (gummy bears) after peeing. So now he loves to sit on it and try to pee, especially after seeing Mika go on it. He started taking his boy bits out of his diaper and I thought he was just scratching or playing with it, but Paul realized that he knows he is going to pee and is trying to tell us to get him on the potty. So pees are going well, #2...not so much. Sometimes when I KNOW he is going to go #2, I will make him sit on the potty and fight him when he tries to get up and leave. Then I'll give up after five or so minutes, put a diaper on him, see him immediately go hide in another room to go #2, and have to do another diaper change.  All in all, we're not pushing the potty too hard, my goal is to have him potty trained by his third birthday so he can just go at his own pace.

Jackson is getting really good at puzzles and can almost do twelve-piece jigsaw puzzles by himself. He knows to take off his shoes and put them under his bench when he comes in the door (he can put his shoes on himself if he tries but usually wants us to put them on). He likes to clean up his toys and books and gets really upset if we try to help. He likes to climb into his car seat now (a big feat for someone that little since we have a huge SUV) and he does the buckles across his chest. He is starting to use the "big boy swing" at the park, but is scared of it most of the time and prefers the baby swing. He just learned how to use the "big steps" and the ladder at the park.

We've been encouraging Jackson to make more decisions-about what he wears, where we go, what he eats, etc. He likes to pick out which diaper he is going to wear next. There are two parks that are close to our house and he decides which one he wants to go to. He knows to go to his room and select an outfit if I say we are leaving the house. He can also put away his clothes almost by himself. I put the laundry basket in front of his dresser and he puts each item away in the correct drawer almost every time. He doesn't fold them, I'll probably start showing him how to do that in a year or so. I used to put his clothes away and fold them, but gave up once he started picking out his outfits. He will dig around in the drawers and mess up everything I folded, so what's the point?

a Jackson-selected outfit at a Jackson-selected activity