Elise had a doctor's appointment this morning for her 4 month old check-up and round of shots. She's doing great. She's now 15 lbs 10 oz and 24.5 inches long.
Keeping her on her tummy for "tummy-time" these days is a bit difficult as most times she tends to just roll right over from her tummy to her back as soon as you lay her down. So she definitely has tummy-to-back rolling down. She has rolled from her back to her tummy a few times, but still tends to get hung up on her arm most of the time. I imagine its only a matter of time, though, before she masters that as well.
She's definitely more interactive and social these days - grunting/growling, cooing, smiling, and laughing. Elise and I volunteered at the book fair at the local elementary school yesterday and she had a great time. She talked to and smiled at everyone who came through. One little boy stopped and talked to her for a minute and she must have thought he was pretty funny because she just giggled as he talked to her.
Her laugh is the best - she has a few different ones: a cooing-like giggle, a grunt-like laugh, and one that sounds kind of like a cackle when she gets real excited. She's recently started humming and singing, too. She coos along with me as I sing "Rock-a-bye baby." I sing other songs to her all the time too, but strangely enough that's the only song she sings along with me. Last week, though, Eric was tuning his guitar and she started harmonizing with him as he tuned it.
Her Baby Einstein jumper is fast becoming her favorite toy - she's mastered turning the piano on and earlier this morning was giggling in delight as she hit it and it started playing with lights flashing.
Some of her other favorite things to do are:
- hit the ball on her Ocean's Wonder activity gym. She's learned how to pull it off, so that's a new fun game - she pulls it off, I put it back on, etc.
- check out her Peek-a-zoo book feeling all the different textures.
- watch the fish and turtle swim around. She was getting a big kick out of the eel swimming and thrashing around the tank last night - the eel got her growl-like laugh.
- and, last but not least, chewing on anything she can get in her mouth including her hands, other people's hands or sometimes our shoulders as we hold her, rattles/teethers, her Taggies doll, floppy bear, etc., etc.
Perhaps her most favorite thing, though, is still taking a bath. She absolutely loves it! She even giggles as we wash her hair and face. Lately we've had to cut bathtime short, though, because she tries to go underwater. We have a double-ended infant/toddler tub -- one end has a slanted back for younger infants to lean back on, the other end has a straight back for older babies and toddlers to sit straight up, and there is a ridge in the center to help keep the babies from sliding down. Well, she's figured out that if she arches her back and throws her legs up she can plop right over that ridge and slide down into the water. While this causes me great concern as I try to catch her before she goes totally underwater, it is a great source of pleasure for her. She's definitely a water baby - I can't wait until we can take her swimming.
Today has been a little hard on her since she got her shots. She was pretty upset - she didn't cry for too long, but growled and blew raspberries at the doctor when it was over and I was holding her. I have to admit her shots were hard on me too. Poor little thing just looked up at me, screaming, as if saying, "how could you let him do this to me?!" - just about broke my heart! As I said, though, she recovered pretty quickly and was fine as soon as we left the doctor's office.
We're still pretty much sleepless in Buellton. When she first goes down for the night, she sleeps in between 3-4 hours, which is great -- but then she's up pretty much every hour on the hour after that. I swear you could almost set your alarm to it! She eats for 10-15 minutes, then goes back to sleep for about 45 minutes and is up eating again. You know, sleep deprivation is a weird thing -- after a while, you start getting used to only getting 1-2 hours of sleep at a time and being a walking zombie by 3 p.m. every day is just the norm. That seems to be about the time my brain shuts down these days - after that point, I have a hard time concentrating and staying focused because I'm just exhausted. Anyway, the doctor suggested we start giving her rice cereal at night now that she's 4 months old and almost 16 pounds, so I'm going to try that in the next couple days. She seems to be interested in watching us eat, so she may take to eating cereal from a spoon okay. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.
