week 19 and 20

elise is truly evolving and it's all moving quite fast for us (don't all parents feel this way?).  just this morning, we had our first opportunity to discipline elise.  notice i say "opportunity" because we couldn't resist her cuteness in the end.  every morning, we play with elise in bed and one of her favorite activities is to bounce on bryant's stomach while he holds her.  as soon as she wakes up, between 5:30 and 6:30, she is ready to bounce.  so bry bounces her for a good while and then puts her down in between us to rest.  well this morning, she started to cry after she was put down and we assumed she was hungry.  nope, she wanted to bounce.  so he bounced her some more and then put her down.  commence more crying.  this cycle repeated a few times when it became clear to us that she had far more energy than both of us combined.  we could have just taught her to deal with it, but we just bounced her all that we could and then moved her to her exersaucer.  i have a feeling some permutation of this incident will repeat itself well into her childhood.

she's starting to roll more from belly to back.  she probably needs another week before going back to belly, but she's nearly there.  we bought her an exersaucer for home and a jumperoo for my mom's house and she just loves bouncing around and playing with toys.

she's also growing even more attached to mommy, if that were even possible.  even our friends notice that she just stares at me intently at all times, even when others (including bryant) are holding her.  today, my sister grace was treating me to (my first!) pedicure for mother's day while bryant stayed home with elise.  well, she ended up screaming hysterically and inconsolably around her bedtime and bry had to call me three times, with the last time asking me to come home since she was nearly hyperventilating.  i left right before they put any nail polish on and ran home.  as soon as i held elise, she let out one long screaching scream and then started to calm down.

speaking of which, we are hoping to sleep train her in the near future.  we tried a little bit back when bryant's mom was here, but we've decided to wait a few more weeks because a lot of the baby sleep experts recommend starting around 6 months since it is a good developmental window.  that and she's been waking up so frequently due to her persistent and stubborn eczema on her neck!  it's so hard as parents to see her scratching her neck at all hours of the night.  we've talked to 3 doctors about it, have bought high-end french products (got the best reviews), and tried medication but it's taking awhile to heal.  so as long as she is waking due to her itchiness, it's probably not a good time to train.  anyway, i just hope this sleep training thing works out although a part of me wonders if she will fall into that small segment of babies who just resist it.  she's quite the determined one.

she also seems determined not to grow hair, haha.  most of her newborn hair has fallen out and her regular hair is growing back eveeeeeer so slowly.  it looks like she will have dark brown hair to go along with her dark brown eyes.  asians, for the win!  just kidding.

ok, enough talk.  here are some photos.  this is just half of what's on the camera now...will post the other half later when i find the cord.  :P