Sweetheart

Silas is becoming such a sweetheart.  He smiles at us all day long, and has developed a particularly sweet bashful little grin in addition to his enormous gummy smile.  Sometimes when he's sleepy he'll leave his eyes open just a crack and beam up at us angelically as he falls asleep.  It's totally adorable.  He has also begun to laugh, finally - although we usually have no idea what was funny!  This morning he giggled when I put on his shirt, which doesn't LOOK like it would be much fun for a baby, but I guess he was amused!

Now that his grabbing skills are better developed, he holds onto our arms, fingers, hair, and anything else he can grab on to.  He pats me while nursing and clings to my shoulder when I carry him.  He holds on to my fingers and supports himself in a sitting position.  It's all overwhelmingly cute.  He has charmed many people - including Aunt Hannah, who visited - in the last several days.

He's also much more aware of his surroundings.  His favorite activity is being balanced as he stands up on our laps or the couch, and he has started twisting around to see what's behind him.  Previously, when he got bored of looking towards the wall, he would fuss and pout.  Now he just turns around!  It's amazing what a little motor control can do for a person's mood.

He is also starting to be able to put his pacifier into his mouth when it falls out, which strikes me as a particularly noteworthy developmental step, since it's a learned behavior, not an instinctive one.  And it allows me to gather a lot more data about him:  when exactly does he want to have a pacifier?  Which kinds does he prefer?  Every day we learn more about who he is and what he likes, and that's very exciting.

On the sleep front, we have made some more progress.  We started pinning a monkey lovey/"transitional object" made of extremely soft cloth on the wall of the co-sleeper, so that there is no free cloth, but he can nuzzle up to a soft patch at night.  We also lay him down to sleep right against the wall.  This has made a huge difference in the amount of grunting and thrashing that he does, and he is able to soothe himself by rubbing his face against the lovey.  Yay!  Unfortunately, this does not stop him from waking up crying some time between 4:30 and 6:00.  However, since he's more comfortable, it's becoming clearer that his wakings in the very early morning are similar to the mysterious sleep crying he does when waking from his mid-day nap.  He doesn't wake up crying at other times, just mid-day and early morning, and it's not an uncomfortable or hungry cry - it sounds like a newborn cry, very forlorn and sad and unconscious.  As far as we can tell, he just comes out of certain sleep cycles by crying.  I remember doing this sometimes as a small child.  We will continue observing, and trying to help him, but that particular issue may be something we just have to wait out.