Gilzow Family Blog

A friend of my daddy’s from work loaned him a Flip Video,
so daddy decided to capture me playing with the dog-dogs.

Turns out that I love watching myself on camera!

I also like digging in the dirt.

And playing with bubbles.

While we were outside playing, the dog-dogs went crazy. Mom got all excited, but Daddy wouldn’t let me go over to
Mommy to see what she was all excited about. Daddy took the dogs inside and then made Mommy and me go back to the
driveway. He said something about a gopher in our fence. That doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes I worry about
Daddy…

Yesterday morning, Annika started clapping for the first time! Now, she’ll do something, stop and clap, then wait to see what our reaction is. LOL!

Yep, it is happening already.  This weekend Annika started screaming.  Not crying like she normally does, but full-out, bloodcurdling screams.  Before this weekend, I had only heard her scream if she was REALLY hungry.  But she was screaming all the time, even in her sleep.  We checked her diapers, tried burping her, and made sure she wasnt still hungry.  We didnt know what else to try, or look for her.

When mom arrived Monday night, she said that it sounded like Annika was in pain.  She asked if we had tried any orajel yet.  The thought hadnt even crossed our minds.   We gave it a shot, and sure enough: 2 minutes after applying it to her lower gums, she wasnt screaming anymore. Since then, Noelle has noticed what looks like TWO teeth coming in.  TWO?  =(

Man, kids grow up fast….

I’m at home full time now with the little one. I actually started last thursday. I’ll be home until the 7th of May. Then I’ll go back to work for a week (for some training), and then have another week off to spend time with her. So far, the hardest adjustment has been the decrease in sleep. However, Noelle and I discovered that it works much better to put her down in her crib in her room than in the bassinet in our room. Turns out Gilzow babies are notoriously loud sleepers. Mom told me that she couldnt sleep with any of us three boys in the room with her because we made so much noise. Sure enough, when we tried leaving Annika in her room, after about 3 minutes of fussiness (though no crying), she went to sleep. There were a couple of more times throughout the night where she would make enough noise to wake me up (via the baby monitor), but by the time I had swung my legs out of bed and started to get up, she was back to sleep.

Last night, she slept from 11:30p until 6:30a this morning! =)

After her morning feeding, sheslept until 10:20 at which time I had to wake her up to eat. She managed to pee all over me, again. While i was pulling off the dirty diaper, the clean one got caught on the dirty’s velcro tab and moved. It was right at that point that she decided to pee. Luckily i was able to deflect it to the changing pad and away from her clothes. She thinks it is HILARIOUS. I dont know if she is just reacting to my reaction or the faces I make or what. But she definitely gets a kick out of it.

We had about an hour of play time together before she started getting cranky. As soon as I changed her, and put her in the bjorn, she went to sleep. She’s asleep right now in the bjorn while i type =)

After this I think I will try and vacuum with her in the bjorn. Who knows? Maybe she’ll sleep right through it and I’ll be able to get some work done around the house!

Just a couple of quick updates on Annika.  Late last week, during one of her fussy periods, I decided to see if I could get her to crawl.  I had read somewhere that lying a baby on its stomach creates the sensation of falling and will calm them down.  So I figured I would give it a try.  Yea, that didnt work.  However, I noticed that she was really kicking her legs and grabbing at the activity mat.  So I moved in front of her and started encouraging her.  Sure enough, she would grab the mat and slowly pulled herself forward.  So, it wasnt really crawling, but, at a minimum, a precursor.

Then, earlier this week, she started truly smiling at us. So, I decided to let her drive at 16 again (I had previously told her she couldnt drive at 16 cuz she pooped on me while changing her. LOL!). Then yesterday, while sitting outside on Josh and Carla’s front porch, she started immitating my facial expressions.  I was making faces at her, and began to stick my tongue out at her.  She stuck her tongue out at me.  So then I stuck my tongue out at her again.  And she did the same!  Back and forth we went for a good couple of minutes before she got bored.  Pretty amazing stuff.

Last night, she decided she no longer wanted to sleep.   It was about 10:30PM.  We had just finished watching a little TV together, and Noelle had just finished feeding her.   Annika was fast asleep.  I picked her up and was on my way to put her into the bassinet upstairs when Noelle stopped me; she wanted to check her diaper.

“Yep, she smells wet.  You should change her before you put her down.”

“Uh…. are you sure? I mean, she’s asleep. Shouldnt we just put her down, and change her when she wakes up next?”

But Noelle wanted me to change her. So, despite my better judgement, I did. And guess what? As soon as I started changing her, she was wide awake. She didnt go back to sleep until 1:30AM. Noelle is still at home with the baby, so she was on “night duty” and had to deal with it. So I’m pretty sure the two of them are going to be pretty cranky today.   =(