4 Months

I haven't blogged in forever! I fully intended to do so, but there always seems like there is something else I should or could be doing...imagine that!

School is going well, and even better since this semester is almost over. I did really well. It's nice to have something in my life that doesn't have anything to do with babies.

Layla is doing great. She's still sleeping through the night from 8:30-7:30am, and I can tell you, it made me see motherhood in a whole new light. I've always loved my baby and loved being a mother, but when you are rest broken, you can get too caught up in the "maintenance" part of being a mother. Now that I'm well rested and the sleep deprived fog has been lifted from my brain, I can really really enjoy my child in a way that I couldn't at first.

She had her four month appointment and vaccinations last week. She is 25 inches, and a whopping 13 lbs 11 oz! She is in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. Not bad considering she was 4 lbs 10 oz at birth. She has already tripled her birth weight and the pedi is so happy with that. She is moving along on track developmentally and her pedi is not using any special preemie considerations or charts for her. Her pedi says she is a normal 4 month old in all respects. That made me very happy needless to say.

She has developed quite a few new skills since I last blogged. She can sit unassisted for a few seconds. She's still very wobbly, but she knows to put her hands in front of her between her legs to support herself. She babbles, squeals, laughs boisterously at the smallest thing.....she's basically an...er.....pretty noisy baby. She loves to stand and is giving my arms a workout by forcing me to hold her in a standing position for minutes on end. I was tempted to run down and get an exercauser or jumperoo right away, but decided to wait to see what she gets as gifts for her first Christmas.

We also started her on rice cereal last weekend because we got the go ahead from the pedi. As expected, she LOVED it. She is such a piggy. The only problem is that she is used to the immediate gratification of sucking all of her meals, so she gets frustrated because we can't seem to spoon it up for her fast enough.

She also does the cutest thing. She discovered her hands in a new way at 4 months old. She makes them into fists, as if she has something tasty inside of them. Then she stares at them back and forth all day. Then she turns them ever so slowly, as if looking for the most savory part, and takes a few nibbles at it. When she gets tired of tasting that one, she goes to the next one to see what that one tastes like.

Here is a 4 month photo! She'll have professional ones done in January when she can behave, as Tim calls it. :-)