Months seven and eight
Through months seven and eight, Alison has gained about two pounds and now weighs
just under twenty pounds. Alison has slowly become accustomed to
being on her stomach and now she looks like she will be crawling in a
week or two. She has started talking quite a bit again, and seems to
know "Ma Ma", "Da Da" and "Ba Ba". Alison also seems to understand and
say "Bye Bye" when Da Da leaves for work, but he's not so sure why she
is smiling so broadly while she says it.
A recent visit to a Halloween store has confirmed our worst fears:
Alison now has two favorite Michael Jackson songs. Her new favorite:
"Thriller". She loved the Thriller song so much
that she started dancing in the Halloween store, which actually caused a
minor commotion. She now dances whenever she hears a song that she
likes, and she particularly loves classical music thanks to the "Baby
Einstein" videos.
"Ma Ma" started work at the beginning of October, and Alison has started
receiving day care from a close friend of the family. Alison has
adjusted very well to her new schedule, and seems to enjoy playing with
the two other children.
Months five and six
On her six month birthday, Alison weighed in at exactly 17 pounds, 12 oz. and was 26 inches in length. She is now enjoys eating baby food like crazy and she is able to sit up for a couple of seconds. She hates being on her stomach, and she turns over like a cat as soon as you try to place her face down. She loves being in her jumper, though, and almost seems closer to being able to walk than crawl. Alison also enjoys going on runs with Daddy, and has been known to "run" 6-7 miles without even opening her eyes!
As you can see in one of the videos, Alison also loves hearing things crumple and laughs with glee whenever she hears it. Although she doesn't like television at all, we've been playing her several "Baby Einstein" videos and she watches the entire 25 minutes without getting bored (Mommy and Daddy usually get bored right around minute two). As soon as you turn it back to the TV, she immediately starts getting restless again.
Our most amazing discovery, however, has been Alison's adoration of the Michael Jackson song "Rock With You". Whenever Alison is restless in the car, all that we need to do is play this song and she *immediately* quiets down, *regardless* of where in the song that it starts playing. We have tried other songs, but this is the only song that works and it works every time, even when she is crying pretty loudly. On longer trips, we've actually repeated the song for up to an hour and she stays content as long as we don't turn it off. If anyone knows why this works and what other songs might work as well, PLEASE tell us - the sanity of two parents might be at stake here!
Months three and four
Alison gained weight quickly in months three and four, and she officially weighed
14 pounds, 4 oz. on her four-month birthday. In only four months since her
birth, she went from being 5 percentile for weight to 50 percentile. Her
length (25 inches) is also average, and her feet seem to be recovering fully
from their severely twisted position at birth. Her favorite activities
were eating, crapping, and being the center of attention (aka
mooing, pooing and cooing). She has learned a special expression to tell
you that she is bored, almost like she knows that she is bored
but she doesn't know what to do about it. Fortunately, this phase doesn't last
and should be completely finished in a mere 15-20 years.
Alison still enjoyed being in the car, although she didn't like being
in the car around 7:30 in the evening, which was occasionally
a slightly "needy" (we don't say the "C-word" any more) time for her. She "talks"
and smiles a lot now, and it is easy to have a very
lively conversation with her for 5-10 minutes where she makes
a variety of vowel and consonant sounds. She has started to kick a lot,
and is almost able to turn herself over. She also loves
to grab things, and we know that she has good hand-eye coordination
because she is even able to grab Daddy's hair.
Months one and two
Alison Marie Hagen was born by caesarean section on Monday
morning, February 4, at 10:44 AM. Alison weighed in at 6 pounds,
5 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches in length.
During the first week, Magda recovered well from her caesarian
section while Daddy's cold required him to wear a face mask
whenever he was near Alison. On Day Eight, she began a 6-8
week "colicky" period where she cried
uncontrollably
almost every evening. Alison generally started crying between
4:00 - 6:00 PM and finished around midnight, almost like clockwork.
Alison sometimes seemed to cry until she became too tired
to stay up anymore. Both Mommy and Daddy spent hours walking
with Alison and singing to her to keep her as comfortable
as possible, with only marginal results. She was in obvious
pain during her colicky periods, and every little whimper
in the afternoon would cause us to jump up in panic as we
hoped to circumvent the inevitably long and noisy evenings.
Although Mommy and Daddy were (somewhat) relieved to discover that colic
rarely lasts beyond Week 12, even the prospect of ten weeks
of colic seemed daunting. We tried every
suggestion that we could find: a non-dairy diet for Magda,
keeping Alison up during the day, dark lighting, classical
music, anti-colic
massages, colic
tonics, baby bouncer, swing and even a baby sling. Eventually,
our best approach was to give Daddy the early shift after
the evening feeding (9:00 PM - 12:00 AM) and let Mommy take
the late shift (12:30 AM - ???). If Alison didn't calm down
from Daddy's "Colicky Baby Dance", he usually took
her for a ride on the highway. Driving between 45 MPH and
65 MPH (no more, no less) magically stopped her crying within
three minutes, and she was usually asleep within 90-120 minutes
(which is about 80-100 miles, since I checked her out every
half hour). It was obvious when an episode was about to begin, since she started with an annoyed look, and extended her arms as though she was about to ride a bucking
bronco. "Hurricane Alison" was downgraded to a
tropical
storm around Week Five, although she really wasn't past the colic until Easter Weekend. Amazingly,
Alison's bad colic started right about on Ash Wednesday (actually Fat Tuesday) and was over forty days later.
Is it possible that Magda and I have satisfied our Lent obligations for the next several years?
For people that are curious to know what it is
like to have a colicky baby, please feel free to download
the "Full blown colic" video and play it. Over and
over again. Nineteen hundred and twenty times. Every day.
For ten weeks. Of course, you'll miss the loving look in her
eyes at midnight when you've finally "cured" her
colic and she peacefully falls asleep in your arms.
