One of Hannah Kate's favorite places to play is on her activity gym. She loves the brightly colored mat and fun stuffed animals and flowers hanging from above. She has even mastered the task of reaching up and grabbing the toys this week. Mason didn't care for this particular mode of play when he was a baby so I really never used the activity gym with him. Well, he has changed his mind about it now. Every time I put her down to play, he has to lay down right beside her. So that means I'm constantly watching to be sure he doesn't accidentally roll over on her or elbow her.
A couple of mornings ago, they were playing on the activity gym together. Hannah Kate kept reaching her arm over and touching Mason. Sometimes she was just able to grab his shirt, and other times she would grab his hand or his arm. Every time this happened, he would take her hand and move it. Every time he did that, I would remind him to be very gentle and careful with Hannah Kate. This progressed in such fashion back and forth several times. Finally, Mason looked at me and said, "Hannah Kate's touching me!"
Images of my brother and I flashed before my eyes. We always had to "draw a line" in the back seat of my mom's car nearly every time we went somewhere, and we were not allowed to cross the line with any of our body parts or any of our toys. Hannah Kate has been here for only three months, and it looks like we're going to have to start drawing a line! I told Mason that Hannah Kate was just trying to be sweet to him and that he could always get up and play somewhere else if he didn't want her to touch him. She grabbed his hand again, and he said, "She's touching me!" He moved her hand yet again. The next time she reached over, she reached higher and managed to grab his hair. And she pulled! Needless to say, that sent Mason scampering to play somewhere else.
I actually forgot to post this . . . a couple of weeks ago, Hannah Kate started sleeping through the night! Sort of. She would sleep through the night for two nights and then wake up on the third night. She would sleep from 10:00pm until 7:00am. On the third morning, she wouldn't wake up until 8:30am or so since she'd had a middle-of-the-night feeding. This pattern continued for two weeks. But this week she has slept through the night only once. So having tasted what it was like to sleep through the night myself (I had forgotten!), I found myself wanting more so I decided last night to give her a bottle at her bedtime feeding, and I mixed in a little rice cereal to thicken it up a bit. I thought for sure that would help her sleep through the night. I was wrong! She woke up at 3:30am and never really went back to sleep very good. And then she was up at 6:30am again. I feel like someone played a really bad joke on me!