Things are getting a lot better these days with Ellie.  Much better than during the first 6 weeks of her life. Those 6 weeks were pretty long….. and now I’ve sort of fallen into a routine with her that seems to be working.

We wake up everyday around 10-ish (sometimes a little earlier but never later than 12pm). I feed her, Jason changes her and she and I go out to the living room to do our morning “exercise” routine. Technically it’s just playtime but I call it exercise.

About an hour or two, she starts to get a little sleepy and on most days, I can get her to nap for a little bit. Around 3-4pm, I take her out for a walk at the local park and she pretty much always falls asleep in the carrier. We get home about an hour and she normally wakes up as soon as we get into the apartment.

Then I play with her a little bit more and I leave her to have some alone time on the playmat while I eat dinner really quickly. Afterwards, she’d nap a for another hour or 2 before waking up again. I play with her a little bit more then I load her up in the carrier and go out for a short walk to get her to fall asleep again.

Since we have the sofa bed pulled out in the living room, I would lay down with her when we get back and the both of us would drift off to sleep until Jason got home at 1:30am, which is when we transfer her to the bed and go to sleep there unless she wakes up at that time. If she is awake at that hour, it’s pretty much impossible to get her back to sleep until maybe 3 or 4 am. I’m just thankful that between the hours of 3am to whenever she wakes up, the feedings aren’t too bad and it is easy to get her back to sleep.

She still has trouble sleeping in the crib on her own but has absolutely no problem sleeping on her own on the sofa bed (with pillows surrounding her). It’s a really strange thing….maybe because the sofa bed lies directly on the floor, making it more solid feeling? Who knows….

But yes, this is what my life is like nowadays….

HA!! I got my action shot of her lifting her head!!

I also have it on video where she lifts her head and then rolls over to her back! Unfortunately, my PC died on me several weeks ago and the video format of the video camera does not work with my macbook. It’ll be a while before I can convert the video format to something I can upload….

But I have my picture!

For the record, Ellie officially lifted her head today! Yay!

She’s technically been slowly lifting it a little bit every time we put her on her tummy. She usually lifts her head maybe 1-2 cms from the ground but within 5 mins or so start crying from frustration. By the way, she hates tummy time.

Unfortunately, I do not have any photos to commemorate this momentus event. Why? Because it happened during our Mommy & Me class.

I was really surprised when she, while on her tummy, got on her elbows and lifted her head up high and looked straight ahead instead of at the ground. It was a proud mommy moment as the teachers and other mommy’s cheered her on . I was really caught by surprise since she has never shown any interest in lifting her head but here she was, doing it as if she’s been secretly practicing when we’re asleep.

I think it’s the peer pressure. Seeing the other babies do it made her determine to do it too. I know because if she was at home, she’d give up and put her head down and either cry or just lay there.

Ah, milestones… So many to meet but when she does it’s amazing. Now if only she would let me capture it on video or photo. She’s a sly one and she knows how to act lazy when the lens are on her.

I wonder if she’ll lift her head up for me again.

This past week, news of the swine flu making its way into Tokyo flooded all the news channels. It’s been like this for a while now…at least ever since the existence of the swine flu was discovered in good ole Mexico.

Japan really is a paranoid country. We’ve been here for so long but the mass hysteria never ceases to amaze me. Sure, I worry about catching the swine flu too and even more so now since I have Ellie’s health to worry about but I still feel that the reaction that people have here have gone beyond just worrying.

For a while now, they have been checking everyone on all inbound flights from the US and Mexico for people with flu-like symptoms and the flu strain on them. For some reason, that didn’t stop the flu virus from getting into the country.

Kansai was the first to go, with a report of some 170 cases of the swine flu causing schools to be closed and people not having to go to work.

Then last week, the first case of the swine flu popped up in the Tokyo region. I think the minute that the news hit, everyone and their mothers went out and bought surgical masks to keep the germs away. I still remember going out the day before the news broke and people were going about like usual but the day after, you see people wearing surgical masks everywhere. Not only that but if someone without a mask on was to cough, all eyes would turn at that person.

To top that off, surgical masks are sold out everywhere and people are resorting to Yahoo! Japan auctions to buy these masks. Masks that use to go for about 2,500yen a box is now going for something like 26,000yen a box. Talk about insanity!

I’m a paranoid person and seeing so many people with masks on makes me nervous about going out with Ellie. In fact, I can feel people questioning me with their eyes when we’re on the subway. I’m sure people are wondering why I’m not keeping her inside and away from the possibility of the flu.

As much as it might feel safe to keep her indoors all the time, I know it’s not possible because we will both go crazy from being kept indoors all the time. These days, when I take her out, I take extra precautions but we still go out and try to enjoy being outside.

Oddly enough, when we were at Roppongi Hills the day after news broke, we saw so many mothers and babies there without face masks. It was just another day for them I guess….

We went to Akiba yesterday for some dinner and to also pick up something from Yodobashi. As we were standing on the street waiting to cross the intersection, we were looking at some games on sale in the front of some store. Jason’s jokingly pointed out the Disney Princess DS game and said that he knows I want to get that. I told him not to joke around because he knows that one day Ellie is going to want to buy that and we’ll see who’s laughing then.

Then our conversation took a strange turn. We both agreed that we would both cry if she wanted to play that game and that it would be a different story if it was the Disney Princess Fighting Game.

We started talking about what that game would be like and who would own all the other princesses. We both agree that Mulan would probably own them all since, hey, she fought in a freakin war and saved China. I also thought that Pocahontas would make a great competitor.

Of course we both had a discussion about who is actually considered a “princess” since neither Mulan or Pocahontas are “princesses.” We decided that they are eligible if they play a significant role in their respective movies.

We also agreed that Snow White would get owned since she doesn’t do much and she was also the one who ate the apple despite warnings from the dwarves about trusting strangers.

Then we went on to talk about the special attacks each princess would have….though details of that part are quite unclear since we both had different ideas on what those were.

Yea, it would be quite interesting if there was ever a Disney Princess fighting game. It will never happen since that’s not the type of stuff Disney is into but man, it would be fun if they really did make it.

It’s been a pretty good week this past week. We managed to get Ellie to sleep in her own crib at nights for a few hours!

Since Monday, after coming home from going out for a little bit, I would hold her until she falls asleep (or getting there) and then try to put her down. Unfortunately, I don’t have the magic touch or something because she would start crying after 10 minutes or so and I would have to go and pick her up again to soothe her. I pretty much gave up after a few tries and would hold her until Jason comes home. He, on the other hand, can put her in the crib and get her to stay calm and quiet for a while.

Anyway, Monday through Thursday, she was pretty good. She went to bed around 8-ish and would wake up several times to eat but then quickly fall back to sleep. After Jason puts her in her crib, we have a good 2 hours of rest before she would stir from hunger again and we would bring her into our bed to sleep with us until 6 or 7-ish, which is when she would wake up and be active. I’d play with her for a little bit and then she would get sleepy and take her morning nap…

Then comes Friday.

I had a little trouble getting her to sleep at around 8…..already a bad sign.

I managed to get her to sleep most of the time until Jason came home….then all hell broke loose.

For some reason, she would not go to sleep and would cry and cry and cry. It was like she was a month old again. I thought we had gotten out of that stage and that things were improving because she was getting older. It was a pretty rough night….which extended to this morning and afternoon…..

*sigh*

Maybe it’s just a fluke and she’ll fall back into the rhythm we had started….who knows…

At least her awake times are spent mostly with smiles, gurgles and cooings…..with the occasional crying.