four months

Our little baby is four months old!  I can't believe how much she has changed and grown.  Throughout the month, Allison has gotten stronger, more vocal, and has been all over the place with her sleeping patterns.  She laughs and rolls and sleeps on her stomach now (as of a few days ago).  She also took a break this month from growing hair to grow some eyebrows.

Allie weighs 15 pounds, 13 ounces now (84th percentile) and is 25 inches long (79th percentile).  Her head is 15.5 inches around (20th percentile). She had her second round of shots on the 4th and she handled them so much better this time.  No change in hair color and eye color this month--still light brown hair and dark blue eyes but it does sometimes look like the center has started to turn brown.  She is still drooling all over the place (some days are worse than others) and she's putting more and more things in her mouth.  No signs of teeth yet though.  She has had more cradle cap issues but again, coconut oil clears it up pretty easily.

When Allie hit 15 weeks, we had a few nights with two night feedings (which was killer) but it didn't last long at all and we're back to just one night feeding.  She typically sleeps between 7:30-3:30, she's back to sleep by 4, then I wake her up at 6:30 to feed her again before leaving for work.  I really don't mind waking up with her in the middle of the night and I actually think I'll be kind of sad when it's over.  She is always so happy to see me and when I lay her down, she's still cooing and smiling.  Sometimes after I lay her down and start to walk out of her room, she'll say something else and I can't help it, I have to run back to her and talk to her some more.

Yesterday, Allie woke up early from a nap so I thought I would let her cry it out a little to see if she would go back to sleep.  After about 10 minutes, she was still wailing so I went in to check on her and she had gotten her arm stuck through the crib slats.  (Obviously I deserve the Mom of the Year award for that one.)  I ran out to Target and bought one of those breathable mesh crib bumpers.  She scoots and rolls SO much that I knew that wouldn't be the last time that happened if I didn't do anything about it.

I returned to work on October 21 and Allison has been doing great in daycare.  It took about two weeks, but I think things are starting to become more routine.  I feel really at ease with the person watching Allie during the day, Christina.  She actually reminds me A LOT of one of my college roommates.  At first, Christina mistook Allie's tired cues for feeding cues so she was eating 16 ounces each day.  Every day I worried about that because I only get between 10-15 ounces a day at work so I was constantly having to dip into the freezer stash.  The past couple of days though, Allie has eaten 12 ounces during the day so I feel better about the feeding situation.  Pumping at work though is a whole other story.  It's really difficult to take a break 3 times a day to pump.

Allie is still wearing a mix of 3, 3-6, and 6 month clothing.  Some of the 6 month clothing is too big but we went ahead and washed everything so we could use the clothes to layer.  Now that we have to actually get dressed for daycare/work every day, we're doing a lot more laundry.  No more staying in our jammies all day.  She's still wearing size 2 diapers.

This month, Allie is really starting to love playing with all of her toys.  After I feed her in the morning, I put her in her Rock N Play with her toys hanging over her and she is perfectly content swatting at them...especially her monkey.  When we lay her on her playmat, she loves throwing her arms all around and hits all the hanging toys.  We keep her Oball in the car to keep her occupied and she knows how to shake it to make it rattle.  During tummy time, she can come up off her elbows and supports herself with just her hands.  She rolled from her back to her stomach the night of November 7th and it seems like that has completely changed the way she slept.  Before that though, some nights I would lay her down facing one way and when I got her in the morning, she had completely turned around.  But she was always perfectly the other direction...never at an angle.  She's quite the scooter and it really blows my mind how mobile she is.  She REALLY wants to crawl but can't quite figure out how to make it work yet.

Carson and I have discovered the hard way that it's pretty easy to spook Allie.  I had done it once or twice when she was younger but it seems the older she gets, the easier it happens.  If we sneak into our room and she catches us, she'll look at us and just wail.  It's so sad/funny.

Allie is laughing more and more every day.  Sometimes when we find a word that makes her laugh, we just repeat it over and over until she's no longer amused.  2 that we know work?  Costco and Jamjams.  She loves it.  She continues to amaze us and others with how totally relaxed and calm she is.  We're able to take her with us and she takes it all in stride.  Last weekend, we actually took her to a bull riding competition and she just sat on my lap and looked at everything and just soaked it all in.  She even took a little catnap on my lap.  She didn't cry once.  And then she slept through the night that night.  Perfect baby?  I mean, I don't want to brag.

My hair loss is definitely much worse than it was last month.  It almost looks like I cut bangs in the front.  Other than that, there's still the constant struggle of juggling being a wife, a mom, and now I have to add work to the mix again.  It's been difficult not being able to stay late at work anymore and it makes me really stressed sometimes.  Working out is totally on the backburner these days.  I just can't seem to find the motivation to do it.   Especially now with the time change...the sun is setting as I leave work.  I have lofty dreams of waking up really early to work out before work but I'm already supposed to wake up at 5:15 and find myself waking up at 5:30 most days.

All in all, the transition back to working hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.  I struggle constantly with the guilty feeling that I'm picking something totally meaningless over raising my child just for money.  However, with my extra income, we will be able to fully fund Allie's college education and will be able to take trips and give her experiences that otherwise we wouldn't be able to afford.  And then that leads me to conflicting feelings that it absolutely wouldn't hurt her if she had to pay for some of her college (I turned out okay) or have a job when she's 16.  I suppose we could still have her do those things to a certain extend.  The point is, I'm working on being comfortable with my decision.