5 month state of the address

Willa is five months old, wow!  This month has seen a host of new experiences, like swimming in a pool and Kindermusik, as well as the basics like her feet and the joy of chomping everything with her two new teeth.  She is about 15-16 pounds, based on the difference between my weight holding her and alone and is still long and thin.  She has great head and neck control, excellent grabbing skills, and is improving in sitting up alone.  During tummy time she is starting to scoot with her first half consistently, and can move across the floor if we help push her lower half.  She has rolling from her front to her back like a champ, but is still working on going from back to front.

Right now her favorite toys are her chain links and the Jumparoo, with the playmat starting to get boring.  When she's in the Jumparoo, she moves and grooves a lot with a big smile on her face, so it seems like this will be the Summer of Jumping for little miss.

She is still sleeping through the night, although most nights she wakes up needing to burp a couple of times before she goes down for the night.  She is still exclusively breastfed, but we will start her on rice cereal in the next couple of days.  As a bonus, she has started to hold her own bottle for Jeremy and the sitters, which is quite impressive.

One handed, no less!

Stranger danger is starting to develop too, which makes me glad that we have had the same babysitters since the beginning.  We went to a craft event at church yesterday, and there were a lot of very nice people that wanted to hold her, but she was very shy.  I think she made it a couple of minutes before she was ready for mom again.  This, plus her reaching for me, makes me feel very loved indeed.  I just hope she doesn't hurt people's feelings during this stage!

Right now we are loving life.  She knows us, is sleeping through the night, eats well, and stays where we put her.  It seems like a perfect sweet spot, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here!

Teething Queen

Despite it being a little early, Willa has officially sprouted her first tooth!

My finger is just over it in this picture, its the lower right incisor

Closer shot, but it's still hard to see!

We could tell that it was coming in for a little while, with her excessive amounts of drool and uncharacteristic fussiness.  Once our sweet girl started being irritable all day, every day, I knew something was on the horizon.  To help her deal with the pain, we tried a few different suggestions from books and friends.  She was very confused by the cold teething ring and didn't really take to it right away.  I bought a vibrating teething ring, but it's activated by strong chomping, and she can't sustain a bite that strong yet, leading to me having to squeeze it and getting very tired thumbs.  

The thing that seems to have brought her back to her usual self is the necklace you see pictured above.  It's an amber teething necklace bought at a local baby boutique.  I was skeptical of this, as I usually reject all baby jewelry as silly and excessive, but after hearing strong testimonials from more than a few friends, and doing some research to make sure it isn't just "magic," I decided to give it a try.  I bought it with a gift card to a store where there wasn't much else I could use it on, so I figured if it didn't work, or I was too concerned about her safety, there would be no big loss if I tossed it out.  As you can see, I didn't toss it out!  Placebo or not, she has returned to her usual self.  She still gets crabby, but she isn't crabby all day.  I make sure she's never alone with it on, and I definitely take it off of her when she sleeps, but for the time its on (playtime and nursing) she doesn't seem to be in pain.  Such a relief for Mommy!

So far it's only one tooth, but we are incredulous that our little one is growing so fast!

4 month state of the address

Willa is four months old!   Time is passing very quickly now that she is getting older, we have settled into a routine, and she is being very easy on us.  She is regularly sleeping through the night now, although we have had to deal with a four month sleep regression.  For the past few nights she has gotten up at least once in the middle of the night.  Let me tell you, once your body is back into the routine of sleeping for 7 hours, it is VERY hard to go back.  Not that it wasn't hard in the beginning, but doing it consistently helped my body to get to a new normal.  I think I forgot how to function properly on significantly reduced sleep.

She is still eating like a champ, and her consumption has skyrocketed lately.  Whereas 4 ounces was once a comfortable feeding, she is putting away 8-9 ounces in her afternoon feeding.  Crazy!  That constitutes a lot of pumping on my part, so I'm hoping my production catches up soon.

Developmentally she is hitting all of her milestones.  She is in the 85th percentile and 37th for weight, smiling, laughing, and starting to sit up.  She needs her Bumbo seat to sit for any extended period of time, but she's great at holding up her head, turning it, and keeping her front half up during tummy time.  In the past couple of days she has also starting reaching for things during tummy time, and she has been reaching and grabbing for a few weeks now.  Yesterday she finally accomplished a personal goal, chewing on her foot:

We are so proud!

She has also started to scoot a little. As long as we put her arms forward during tummy time, she will scrunch her legs until her shoulders are over her hands. So great to watch!  Hopefully I will get it on video soon :-).  At the same time, I'm glad she still stays in one place when I put her down, so she can enjoy her playmat while I make lunch or do some dishes quickly.  I know I need to savor this time!

In sum, we have the best baby ever.  She spoils us with her sleeping, eating, and loving disposition.  I'm excited to see what the next month brings!

Willa's Baptism

Willa is officially a member of our church!  To mark the occasion all of our immediate family and Willa's godparents came to visit us in one crazy, whirlwind weekend of barbeque, babies, and brunch.  Julian and Sandi once again took lots of pictures, but here are my favorites:

Portrait with the grandparents, when Willa is actually looking a little forward instead of straight at Grammy's green sweater.  For some reason she was fascinated and wouldn't stop looking at it for the longest time, as in the next picture:

Oh well.  The whole family looks great, although Lark was understandably losing patience.  

 So great to have everyone together at the same time!

Willa was losing patience during this time with her godparents, who dressed (accidentally) in coordinating outfits.  They both traveled long distances to be there for her and were so wonderful with her, lucky girl!

Pictures weren't allowed during the actual baptism, but BJ was nice enough to do a reenactment later so we could get a quick shot.  During the real thing she made sustained, inquisitive eye contact with BJ.  

During this, she slept.

This is the best shot of her in her little bonnet, which can be converted into a handkerchief for her "something old" when she gets married.  It was a little small for her head, but I thought it was extremely cute.

What a beautiful day and weekend it was.  It was such a blessing to have everyone together at the same time!

Willa's First Easter

Little Miss Willa had a lovely first Easter!  The day before Easter she received a sweet little card from Grammy and Granddaddy with a pop-up, moveable bunny that she enjoyed watching.

She was also trying to figure out how to get it in her mouth, like most things these day

When she woke up in the morning, she got to play with the things in her Easter basket, which Mom had to be very creative about.  I found the hedgehog basket at Target about a month before Easter, it was just too cute to pass up!  I then put in her Easter dress, which I found at Once Upon a Child, and used it to fill most of the basket.  To that I added a Pat the Bunny book from Grandma Teri, and three Easter eggs that I knitted, one of which has a rattle inside.  I figured this was the best way to have eggs that she could enjoy at this age, although they didn't really keep her interest.  Oh well, I thought they were nice!

Very cuddly, if nothing else

That morning we enjoyed the church service and watching the older kids doing the Easter egg hunt.  Willa was her usual wonderful self during the whole thing, and Jeremy got to snap perhaps the most precious picture of her that will ever be taken.  This was taken right after she woke up from a quick nap, and realized that I was still holding her.  The smile was brief, but he got it on camera!

After the service we took turns with another family snapping Easter portraits in front of a flowering dogwood tree.  We definitely should have faced the other direction to avoid the sun, you'll notice that we all are squinting.  Whoops!

Oh well, Willa is still cute :-)

Great holiday overall, I can't wait for the day that she will be toddling in the Easter egg hunt with all the other little ones at church!

3 month state of the address

We made it through the fourth trimester!

Our little Willa is growing very well, she is 12 pounds 4 ounces now, which is good weight gain.  She is still sleeping through the night consistently, and we have started transitioning her from sleeping in her swaddle to sleeping with her arms out.  We are hoping that after she makes this transition we will be able to get her to sleep in her crib at night (although I know I will miss having her right next to me in the cosleeper!).  She is still a great eater and is still willing to cuddle with any babysitter we have used.

The one little bump in the road is that it looks like she may have a milk sensitivity, which means that I get to go dairy free for the next two weeks.  Bummer that this falls over Easter, so I will just have to dream of Cadbury Cream Eggs, but it's worth it if that's what Willa needs.  Ever the trooper, the sensitivity doesn't make her fussy or sleep any less, just a change in her diapers (TMI, sorry!)

So overall we continue to be blessed with the most wonderful baby ever made!

Making friends

Willa had a very exciting morning yesterday.

I finally made it out of the house to a post-pregnancy yoga class with one of the teachers that taught my prenatal yoga class.  They have two wonderful volunteers that come to hold and attend to the babies so that we can get our bodies back to normal working order.  It's truly a wonderful program and I'm so thankful to be able to get moving and stretching again!  Willa did very well in her carrier for a few minutes, but the best part was when she made a new baby friend, a little boy name Wilbur.  I knew Wilbur's mom in the prenatal class, and we got to be pretty good friends after bumping into each other all the time in a crazy series of coincidences, then deciding to be more purposeful about it and getting coffee/lunch a couple of times.  Wilbur is only 9 days older than Willa, so they are both in the chatty stage, with hilarious results.  We will definitely have to get these kids together for a play date :-).

Witness the cuteness! (Please note, I can't figure out how to turn the video, and Willa is the baby on the right)