This past week has been stressful in many different regards, but also very rewarding because Liliana has learned a lot in just a short period of time. She’s now

• reaching, grabbing, and holding things
• opening her mouth at the same time she’s bringing something to her mouth
• using her neck muscles to pull her head forward while seated
• squealing (laughing shouldn’t be too far away!)

She still hasn’t rolled over, but she’s getting there. I’m sure that with a bit more practice, she’ll be rolling all over the place within a week.

Another new development with Liliana is that one of the things she’ll grab and try to put in her mouth is her pacifier. This past Saturday, she was making sucking motions while awake. I thought maybe if I offered her a pacifier, she just might take it. I put the pacifier to her lips and was refused. After a while, I gave it to her to hold, and she brought it to her mouth. She started sucking/chewing on the round base of the pacifier, and after several tries, she put the nipple part of the pacifier in her mouth. She only chewed on the nipple and played with it using her tongue, so while it’s good that she’s getting reacquainted with the feel of a plastic nipple, she needs to start sucking so we can feed her with a bottle.

Just today, Liliana actually let me put the pacifier in her mouth. She did bring her hands immediately to my hand or to the pacifier, but it’s still a good thing that she allowed me to put the pacifier in there first.

Also today, I propped her up on our bed with a Boppy and a pillow. She tends to lean forward too much when she sits, so I had the Boppy around her front and the pillow behind her. I had the pillow elevated against the Boppy, so when Liliana leaned back onto the pillow in a slightly reclining position, she was able to pull herself back up to sitting. She enjoyed it a lot, and was especially happy when Sean came home. She leaned back on the pillow to watch him talking, and then when he sat on the bed in front of and to the side of her, she pulled herself up to look at him. Sometimes she would lean so much that she couldn’t sit up again, so we gave her a hand to pull up with.

Liliana is such a strange baby. Right now, she’s sleeping, sucking on nothing, and one arm is up in the air.

Well, it’s getting late and everyone else in this house is sleeping (I bet the cats are sleeping too, even though they’re mostly nocturnal!) so I should get going. Good night!