The Simple Life: Four months

Hey folks, guess what?! We have a four month old! And she's been very busy getting up to speed. I feel like this month especially Ellie has made the transformation from baby to "little human". She is much more alert and her personality is starting to emerge. She smiles all the time and is on the verge of laughing. I predict in the next week or two she'll be busting out full fledged chuckles. She has started to babble and is particularly found of the word "aaah" or "maa". I have her working on "Mama", but no rush. ;) She still loves her nakey time and when she is naked she will repeatedly grab her feet and stuff them in her mouth. It makes diaper changes very challenging but hilarious nonetheless.

Her fine motor control has gotten much better and she can grab a toy if you hold it in front of her. Sometimes she reads the paper with her dad and loves grabbing the paper and making in crunch. She is very good at pulling her chewpie out of her mouth, but of course can't put it back in yet. So it is a constant back and forth game of her pulling it out and us putting it back in. She thinks it's very funny! She is also on the verge of rolling over. She can get about halfway before she rolls back onto her back. Tummy time has finally become interesting to her and will tolerate it for a few minutes at a time, which is a big improvement. She especially loves it when we hold her up in the air and she "flys" around like superman. She wants to stand up on her legs and basically refuses to sit anymore. I finally busted out the Jenny Jump Up and she loves it. She's still a little small for it so we have to prop her up with blankets. I say give her another inch and she'll be all over it. It's great for us because we can set it up in the kitchen and make dinner while she's entertaining herself.

Ellie enjoying her Jenny Jump Up

Overall she is a very happy baby. The only time she gets really fussy is when she eats. Her feedings have still been a little difficult but she has made a lot of improvement. Her acid reflux continued to get so bad that she was hardly eating and not gaining enough weight. Luckily she didn't lose any weight, but she had dropped down into a lower weight percentile and her pediatrician was concerned. We took her to see a pediatric GI and he concluded that her symptoms were "classic reflux". He prescribed her two medications and had us try a hypoallergenic formula. I was not a fan of the new formula because a) it cost $40 for a small container which would last us less than a week and b) the main ingredient was corn syrup. NOT what you want to be feeding your infant. Nonetheless we tried this new regiment for two weeks. At first she seemed to be doing a little better. It was still touch and go but she was eating a lot more, but by the second week she seemed to regress a little bit. We didn't see any real improvement with the medications. When we went back for our follow-up, her weight had increased an acceptable amount and she was eating as good as could be expected. He told us that since her symptoms were not getting worse and the medications weren't making a difference, that it was likely that she, like all babies, just has an immature digestive system and it's just going to work itself out as she gets older. Since she is back to gaining weight at a normal rate there is no concern. So long story short, she doesn't seem to have acid reflux but we still have a hard time feeding her. Obviously feeding has never been her strong point and we just have to do whatever and whenever we can to get her to eat. It's just a lot of starting and stopping, burping and waiting it out but eventually she gets what she needs. And since this is the way it's always been, it's not that big of a deal to us. We've just adopted the "it is what it is" philosophy.

Here are the stats from her 4 month pediatric visit:

Head circumference: 40cm (34.4 percentile)
Height: 25 1/4'' (81.3 percentile)
Weight: 13lbs 4oz (31.3 percentile)

We are excited that we get to start her on solids soon. We got the go ahead from the pediatrician but decided that we might wait until after the holidays so we won't have to deal with solid and smelly poop while traveling. I am hoping that solids will help with her eating issues. As it is she doesn't like us to get anything near her mouth (most definitely from when we were having to give her medications. She was NOT a fan and it was very difficult), but hopefully she'll realize that real food is very tasty and will take to it. I also *sound the trumpets* got the thumbs up to take her on jogs in our Baby Jogger stroller. Praise all that is good and right in the world! Getting exercise is way harder than I imagined it would be once she was on the outside and this mama is getting tired of her pants being tight. When I do have the time, or get Tom to watch her for me, there are about 10,000 other things that need to get done and unfortunately exercise isn't always on top of the list. Usually sleep wins. He he. I'm looking forward to taking her on jogs on the trail that runs by our house. She loves to be outside and I think she'll like looking out versus looking at me the whole trip (I mean common, that has to get old).

We are gearing up for the holidays and we are looking forward to our trip to Seattle for Christmas. It will be Ellie's first plan ride (eek!). Hopefully, if there is a God, it won't be too traumatic for her or us...or everyone else on the plane. We will be in Seattle for almost three weeks visiting Cece & Rusty, my parents, Claire & Joey and going south to visit some college friends in Portland. It's going to be a very fun and busy trip! Since we'll be there for so long we're looking forward to doing all those things we always want to do but never have enough time to do. I'm glad that Ellie's first Christmas will be spent with so much family around.

And without further ado, here are my favorites from month 4...