10/07 4eme semaine/ 4th week

D'habitude, je commence ma semaine par un avion de ligne qui m'ammene a mon avion quelque part dans l'Amerique du nord, mais parfois, il arrive qu'un avion se trouve a Phoenix meme.

Du coup, Florence en a profite pour revetir son uniforme, et s'est servi de l'occasion pour jouer au parfait copilote. Photo classique dans une compagnie aerienne, ou tous les papas pilotes exploitent ainsi l'occasion de photographier leur progeniture aux commandes d'un cockpit.

In the top pic you can see that Miss Florence sits up now. She was sitting up assisted for a few weeks then suddenly was able to sit up all on her own. (She can't get to a sitting position on her own, but she can keep vertical without help.)

Also in the picture you will notice, on her lap, her Sophie, an infant chew toy, as it were, that actually hails from the French Alps. Cost a fortune to get it here but it has been worth it because it is the best for times of teething. Truly, it's just like a dog chew toy. Squeaks and everything. Loudly! Should have just gone to Petco. Would have saved a fortune!

We've been rocking on the tummy time, wherein she now averages 150 minutes or so a day, a far cry from the days when we were lucky to get two minutes, which usually included screaming bloody murder.

We've had to switch to doing her torticollis stretches while she's awake. She had become too big for me to hold in my arms and perform them, all without waking her. Unfortunately, she cries such big sobs that your heart breaks. And I swear she gives you this look that says "Mommy, why are you hurting me on purpose?" I hate it. I worry she'll have permanent psychological scars from this and needs loads of therapy. Everyone says "no worries" that she won't remember. But then why does she scream every time we put her down where we always perform the exercises. Not like her to scream that way. NEver did it before we did this while she was awake. And, no, we don't switch it up and try different locations because when we did that she cried every single time we would put her down. No good way to live for her. No good at all!

And she's just oh so close to crawling. She was still doing her crab crawl until a while ago but has made great progress (it's something we've worked alot on - because it will be key to helping her torticollis). She can even crawl forward - slowlyyyyyyyy. For better for worse, she's so darn close and so excited to get moving that for the last week she has made it a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to practice. And each night I have to go in and rescue her because she usually ends up working herself into a corner in some contorted position that, in the pitch dark, she can't seem to get herself out of (ever have those moments when you get up in the middle of the night and are so disoriented that you think you're trapped - can't find a doorway or light switch or anything. Well, this is what's happening to her. So I rescue her. Golden Rule and all that.) So we are practicing crawling big time so that she can make her final breakthrough, which should calm down the light night wakings. But, until then, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I hope, sometimes, that she can save herself. On that behalf, lately when I hear her cries for help I'll go into her room commando style, wherein immediately upon opening her door I drop to the floor and crawl soldier style using only my arms, dragging my legs behind me, so that she will not see me over the edge of her bumper pad. Then I slllloowwwwwlly raise my head to peek at her. The goal is to see if she's in trouble again or just awake, laying normally. So there I am, in the glow of the minute light from the radio. Sloooowwwly raising my head, attempting to keep my joints from creaking, thus alerting her to my presence (No, she can't smell me, as they say, because when Richard's gone I sleep in her room and she's never the wiser.) Raising my head, raising my head, raising my head just to the tip of the bumper and peering over the side. And, loll and behold, right in front of me is two bright eyes peering back and a little cute mouth open and breathing quietly. Turns out she was just there in the corner right next to me, quietly waiting to see what was approaching her from below! I say "Hi sweetie!" and she smiles, relieved. Caught. Stealth fighter I am not. No Navy Seal commission for me. Ah well. Guess it will be a long night.

Next week Florence will be starting solids with the commencement of her six month birthday. Can't imagine how long she'll grow on solids considering she's already on her way to three feet! (Ok, she's 27 inches long but OH MY GOSH!)

Out! Cold!