Fussy

Today Madeline has been very fussy. She's hardly slept all afternoon, instead remaining semi-permanently latched to her feeding-parent except for brief excursions to the changing table with her diaper-parent. She must still be growing even now; she feels heavier, and her newborn clothing is definitely more snug than it was just a couple days ago.

As Madeline grows, she's also getting fiestier (as we see particularly well on fussy days like this, as she flops her head and flails her limbs). Today we tried to encourage her physical development by giving her some tummy time. Here's the setup:

Baby is splayed on the lovely quilt friend of the family Chris made for us (stacked on top of the lovely quilt friend/former-roommate/mutual-bridal-partier Anna made for us -- another post, though, will have to stand as testament to its loveliness).

So, we flip her from back to belly and encourage her to lift her head and move her limbs as if crawling. It's hard to capture the rise-and-flop nature of tummy time; here's the clearest picture we got:

Those little fast-twitch muscles do a great job getting her head up, but any sort of sustained posture is impossible at this point: hence the flop. So: after her head wouldn't stay up and her flailing limbs would fail to propel her forward, Madeline would fuss, we'd flip her back, and the process would begin anew. Until, of course, tummy time gave way to a lengthy feeding.