4 months

Jade is 4-months old today. She celebrated by sleeping last night. Nothing extraordinary... but 3 hours in her crib is so much better than what we got the rest of the week.

She's rolling over front to back fairly consistently. Even in front of me a couple times :)

She has now officially held herself up with her arms while sitting once. She tries all the time, but her arms just aren't quite strong enough and she's super flexible so she winds up sitting... but with her face on the floor.

We went to Christopher Newport University yesterday to hand out fliers for our church's new college ministry, and she did so well. I had her in the babyhawk and she just looked around and hung out for a whole hour. It was great.

I am slooowly learning back carries with my wrap, which I love. I am hoping to get more proficient soon because she really likes to be able to look around and she'd be able to see so much more this way. But so far she's been too low to see over my shoulder, so I'm working on that.

We're loving cloth diapers. Still trying to decide which ones we're going to use full time, but we're definitely going to make the switch.

She's still a pretty serious baby... but she is smiling more and we FINALLY managed to get a few smiles on the camera- yay :)

And for the pictures...

My little girl

Is getting so big.

I am aMaZeD at how strong she is. She loves nothing more than to sit on the edge of the table while holding onto our hands. Oh wait, I take that back... she loves to STAND on the edge of the table holding onto our hands. She just stands there, looking around, wobbling all over the place, but so proud. Every now and then she'll let go of one hand for a second or two. I'm not sure how many almost 4-month-olds can do that, but I declare my 4-month-old amazing even if it's more normal than I think it is :)

The visit with Carmen and Randy was really good. Chuck and I were able to go see 2 movies... Despicable Me and Inception. I definitely liked Despicable Me better. Jade wouldn't take the bottle from Carmen here (I was really hoping she would say "oh, this is the person I took the bottle from in that other house", but no such luck) but we just left the house after putting her down for the night and it was ok.

Sleep was going better for a few days, but now is getting worse again. There's something called the 4-month sleep regression that I think we're going through. It's like she's too curious about what's around to sleep. Up until now, if she was asleep when we got to Target, I would strap her on and she would sleep the whole way through the store. But now she's looking all over the place and won't go back to sleep. And then we get into that lovely overtired place where she's exhausted but can't/won't sleep. Hopefully this won't last long, because I was enjoying the 4-5 hours she was doing in the crib at the start of the night :)

Grandparents

Are in town! It's so nice to have built in babysitters at the house :)

Jade and I had a good week overall. Her naps are getting much more predictable and nighttime sleep is getting some better.

I just finished up a life group with some ladies in my church... we did the book Frappe with Philippians by Sandra Glahn. I loved it and highly recommend it. I'm going to look into the other books in the study.

Wow

I'm a big fat slacker. I am determined to post more frequently, but this gets pushed to the back of the priority list fairly often. I will try to be better :)

Last week, my friend Jessica and her 11-month-old little boy Caleb came to visit. We had a ton of fun just sitting around doing nothing. We did go to Williamsburg to go to the outlet malls and I got 2 pairs of jeans that fit and do not have holes in them. An amazing thing in my post-pregnancy life.

This week we are starting to transition Jade to her crib some. Up until now we have been co-sleeping and bed-sharing. My goal is for her to do her first stretch of sleep in the crib and then we'll bring her to bed with us. Unfortunately, so far her first stretch of sleep has been 2 hours. Not exactly a lot. I'm thinking that we might be hitting the 4-month-wakeful a bit early, but we'll see. I'm not too worried about it. Honestly, as much as I never thought I would, I love bedsharing. I love waking up and seeing my baby girl laying right beside me. I just don't want to do it forever... so I do want to get her used to sleeping in her crib at least part of the night. But she is napping in her crib for most of her naps now, which is huge, so that's good.

Another new thing this week is cloth diapers. For various reasons that I can expand on if you guys care, I decided to try them out. There's a website that has a trial... you get to keep them for 21 days and as long as you return them all, it just costs you $10. So far they've worked really well... but I haven't had to wash them yet, so I'll let you guys know how that goes :)

And that is all.

Quick update

Today was our first appointment with the occupational therapist. Last week at her evaluation, they basically said that her mouth needs to be trained to do what most babies do naturally: suck and swallow. She will suck on her hand all day long, but had a hard time with the breast, and will not take a pacifier or bottle.

The appointment was fairly uneventful, but we can't expect a miracle in a week! We will go once a week for 6 weeks, and then re-evaluate.

Yesterday we had Jade's 3-month pictures made. She was the most serious-faced baby ever, but I think the pictures turned out really well. Here's a link if you're interested: http://smilestore.picturepeople.com/PR3/ThumbPage.aspx?e=6983224.

Back home

Monday we got home from Minnesota. All in all the trip was great, although exhausting. We hung out with Chuck's parents and brother, went to a wedding in Wisconsin, went to the Mall of America and went to an impromptu class reunion for Chuck's high school class.

Here are some photos to document Jade's first major trip :)

Jade did not actually attend a Twins game (although Chuck and I went to 2- yay). BUT she got to come on a tour of Target Field, which I must say was very interesting. I uh... hate baseball (yes, Chuck knows this and has reconciled with at as long as I play along) but the Twin's new stadium (is that what you call a baseball field??) is pretty awesome.

This is the 3 of us at the wedding. Aren't her shoes adorable?? My Aunt Debra bought her outfit and I just loved it. This was her first time wearing shoes.

This is Jade smiling at me at the hotel. She smiles pretty consistently now... but never for the camera. It's the most frustrating thing ever. Oh well :)

And my little girl is now 3 whole months old!

Family in town

Sorry for the lack of posts, but my brother and his wife and 2 kids have been in town so we've been a bit busy!

Jade took her first trip to Busch Gardens on Monday and did great... slept almost the whole time, haha. And they actually have a little place you can go for diaper changes and to nurse. Generally I have no problem nursing in public, but since she's been so finicky lately I really can't. So it was very nice to have an air conditioned place with a recliner to nurse her in. Much better than a bathroom stall!

Our AC went out Tuesday night. NOT fun. It got up to 89 in our house before we got it fixed. Praise God that it was just one part and we didn't have to replace the whole unit. $242 is not that bad. But that was the worst night sleep I've had in a while... which is saying something. Poor Jade was not happy. But she made up for it last night by sleeping from 10 until 3:30. I actually feel almost rested :)

Tomorrow, Chuck and I leave to go to Minnesota and Wisconsin. His friend Bo is getting married in Wisconsin, so we're taking this time to visit his family as well. We didn't do a baby shower for the Minnesota crowd before Jade was born, so we're going to do a "meet Jade" party now. It should be fun. I'm a bit nervous about the travel part... but I think we'll be fine. There's no way to know without trying!