Eating and Naps

Kaelyn reached a big milestone the other day...she grabbed the spoon and started spooning! Sometimes she helped me with the spoon but she never showed any interest in doing it herself. She feeds herself finger foods so I wasn't too worried about it. Plus I knew her feeding herself yogurt and baby food with a spoon would be a REAL mess so I didn't push it! But a couple of days ago she wouldn't let me help. So be it! Spoon away, baby, spoon away! She's doing pretty well with it, really, though it takes a LONG time to eat as she doesn't get much on the spoon each time. Oh well, I'm usually in no hurry!

Perhaps her new adventures in spooning are the reason her naps are not going well. At least the last two days. Everything was normal on Sunday but then Monday I put her in her bed for her nap and she screamed bloody murder. Usually she'll yell for like 10 seconds and go to sleep. This time she yelled and yelled and yelled. Not her normal, I'm tired, I need to go to sleep yell, but a full force scream. I let her go at it for awhile but she wasn't wearing out so I went back in. I'm pretty sure she was having some juicy toots (due to what I found in the diaper) and perhaps that was painful or something, I don't know. She was VERY upset. But the second I picked her up she calmed down. She sobbed for awhile but fell RIGHT asleep. Back to our old ways of sleeping in the chair! I figured it was a one time deal. However, today, the same thing happened...only this time no gas. I'm hoping she isn't thinking, well, I got away with it one day, I may as well do it EVERY day! When she's crying THAT hard I can't just leave her. It's not a simmer down into nap cry. It's a SCREAM. It's so loud I heard it in the basement...with her door shut...and the basement door shut...NO monitor. When she's sitting up in bed I can pretty much say that she isn't going to sleep. If she's laying down and crying she'll go to sleep at some point but she hasn't been doing that. Just sitting in there screaming her head off. She gets all hot and sweaty and it's just pitiful. I'm hoping it's a phase...a short phase, and will wear off soon. She HAS been extra clingy lately around strangers. Not that she's ever been friendly with people she doesn't know! But the last week and a half or so whenever someone she doesn't know approaches or talks to her or looks at her she not only clings to me but also buries her face in my shoulder or turns her head away from them. So hopefully this nap thing goes along with that. Though the napping thing has only been 2 days (so far) and the clingy-ness has been longer. Who knows. I'm just trying to figure out the unfigure-able! I should have learned that by now!

I have a great video of Kaelyn playing on our bed. Sometimes she free falls backwards onto it so one day I did the free fall backwards and she laughed so hard I thought she was going to break a rib. So I did it again. And again. And again. For like 20 minutes. She was giggling full force. A big ole belly laugh! Other funny things lately (to her!)...it was raining today...ALL day. When we got home from our errands we stood in the garage and I stuck her hand out into the rain and pulled it back in. Big laughs. Yesterday she was pointing to a banana in a book and I was saying banana in kind of a silly way. Huge giggles. Sometimes it's the simple things that set her off. But I tell you, when those giggles come, I would do whatever it is that's making her laugh ALL day because it's the best sound in the world. WAY better than the screaming at naptime lately, that's for sure!!