When Stella Wakes Up

I think my favorite thing in the world is Stella just after she has had a good sleep. She wakes up cooing and smiling. She has this extremely cheesy, funny looking morning smile combined with stretching and looking all around.

Sometimes she does this funny little side to side head movement, as if she is looking for something or isn’t quite awake yet. She is such a little scraggle muffin in the morning with her scraggly hair, little snorts, and squishy facial expressions. I just love it!

Sometimes we find her with her legs straight up in the air:

A few weeks ago she decided that she actually likes taking naps in her crib. Before she would just fall asleep randomly in her bouncer or in my arms, but now she takes quite regular naps in her crib.

However, she is still perfectly happy to sleep on the go if the situation requires it.

Or catching a nap in a random place like on the couch.

However, the one place she struggles to sleep is church. Last Sunday she was screaming and I knew that she just needed to fall asleep, but she just wouldn’t give in and fall asleep. I can usually temporarily get her to stop crying by taking her outside, so I took her out to the grass and laid her on her changing mat in the shade and she instantly fell asleep. I sat out there with her until it got kind of windy and then I was able to transfer her inside.

Sometimes she likes to lay on her back with arms and legs spread open, but lately she has started turning to the side and flinging one little leg over the other and covering her eyes with her arms. She starts to assume this position almost as soon as she is set down in the crib. I wish I had a picture of her with her hands over her eyes. Its so cute.

Sometimes I let her take a nap in her diaper because it gets so hot and she HATES being hot.

One of these times I heard her talking to herself over the monitor. I grabbed the camera and walked in the room quietly. She didn’t know I was in there filming her at first. I love how she is content to just lay in her crib and play with her toes and babble to her self.

Love that girl!