Our daughter is a sponge. All you have to do is say something one time, and it sticks. It's good that we're not in the habit of saying anything really bad, because I guarantee she would be repeating it. It is truly amazing how quickly she is learning things! Her vocabulary continues to grow in leaps and bounds - I cannot keep up with what's new. However, there have been some fun things. For one, Cora has heard me say and likes to repeat when I say "Oh, bull!" For whatever reason, I tend to say "bull" in an odd manner making it sound more like "bool". Cora thinks it's funny. I don't even think about it and she says it right after me. Much to my surprise, as I was trying to teach her that it was not acceptable to throw her milk cup in the floor, she responded, "Oh, bull!" Needless to say, that teachable moment was pretty much gone at that point. Another funny thing - we were on our way to the mall the other day, and when I turned the car to drive into the mall, Cora exclaimed, "Whoa, Momma!" She totally came up with this one on her own. She said it over and over and I was laughing hysterically - unfortunately no one was there to witness it with me. However, since then she has begun saying "whoa (insert name)!" whenever someone coughs or sneezes or just because. It is adorable. So, she continues to just be a joy!
On the other hand..... We've had our share of struggles in the last couple of weeks. Our precious daughter at one time was this wonderful baby who we could just lay in her crib and she would go to sleep. It was wonderful. Then one day, separation anxiety came. I started rocking her until she was almost asleep and then would lay her down; then it got to where I had to rock her until she was asleep. We've tried periodically to get her to go to sleep on her own, but we never had much luck. She generally screams until she's losing her breath and sounds like she's going to vomit. We decided to try again a couple of weeks ago. She had been getting up at 4am thinking it was time to play and was impossible to get back to sleep, so we let her "cry it out". (This was after I had rocked her for an hour...) She was asleep within 20 minutes. We decided to roll with that and tried it the next day, and again, she did great! Then something changed... The next day she cried when I laid her down for her nap for 1 hour and 45 minutes until I finally decided to just rock her to sleep. That night, I tried to rock her to sleep. She was asleep and then when I tried to lay her down, she woke up and started screaming again. That night she cried off and on until almost 11:00 when she finally went to sleep. Suddenly, it was as if she was terrified of her crib. She wouldn't nap, she continued to wake up when I would try to lay her down. We took major steps backwards. I just decided to start rocking her again in hopes that we could get back to peaceful sleep times. We've finally gotten to the point where she no longer seems to be terrified of her crib. I can rock her to sleep and lay her down. However, she still seems to be scared every time she wakes. She used to babble, but now she always cries, and every time she wakes up during the night (which is on average 2-3 times per night), she no longer seems to be able to go back to sleep on her own. So, it has been exhausting. Hopefully she'll get back to sleeping through the night this week. It's been a tough couple of weeks to say the least.
On a lighter note, I have some really cute videos to share. :) Also, there is a link to my facebook photo albums if you're interested.
Facebook albums:
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=940253851710&id=12924167&aid=2522846&l=7f4b1d6d30
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10100154611808620&id=12924167&aid=2531073&l=ee94941ebe
