Four months!

Miss Kate, you are four months old!  The days are mighty long, but the months are flying by.

You are such a darling girl who warms our hearts on the coldest days.  This month you discovered your voice and delight us with your gurgles, coos, yelps, and screeches.  You are clearly trying to communicate. You love it when we mimic your sounds.  You are happy to be surrounded by so many people who love you, and you flash your fabulous dimpled grins whenever you see a familiar face.

Kate, you are continuing to grow!  You aren't going to be in 3-6 month clothes (or size one diapers) for long. Last week at your check-up you weighed 12 pounds, 8 ounces and were 23 inches long. You jumped from below the 3rd percentile at the end of October to the 25th percentile in mid-December!  Quite suddenly you have chubby thighs, a round belly, pudgy wrists, and a double chin.  You love your bottles and drink 4-6 ounces every 2-3 hours.  

You are showing an interest in toys.  Although you still prefer sucking your fists, you are starting to grab at toys and put them in your mouth.  Your silly mommy misplaced the box of baby toys, so at the moment your options are limited!

You sleep better some weeks than others (don't we all?).  On a good night, you'll sleep from 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.  Once you stretched that to 4:45 a.m.!  But other nights you wake up three or four times, always wanting to eat.  We know you are still catching up, growth-wise, so we try to be patient with your erratic sleep patterns.  You take a consistent morning nap around 9:00 a.m. and sometimes take a 3-hour nap in the afternoon.  Sadly, as the fifth child, you don't have a super strict routine.  We are often on the go and you catch a snooze when you can!

You don't spend tons of time on the floor (with so many feet in the house I'm not sure it's safe!), but when you do, you kick and wiggle and squirm.  Sometimes you dig your heels into the carpet and scoot. That's not doing much for the bald spot on the back of your head!  You always travel in your sleep and almost always wiggle out of your burrito-wrapped blanket.  You strenuously object to being cold, but we're not sure how to keep you warm!

This week you tried rice cereal for the first time.  As you can see from these pictures, it wasn't your favorite thing.  Since you aren't super steady in the Bumbo chair, we thought you might be more comfortable in my arms, but your opinion of the cereal remained the same.  Hopefully you will enjoy the addition to your diet as time passes.

During your fourth month you traveled to (or through) five states on our Thanksgiving road trip.  You met a great chunk of your extended family in the process.  Now we are looking forward to your first Christmas!