Four Months for Anna Kate

Keeping up with Anna Kate's milestones is proving to be a major challenge. ha! There is ALWAYS something else that needs doing if I find myself with a few minutes where I can think and type. As we speak, the two littles are sleeping, but the whole house is as messy as it's been since Anna was born. I need to go through the children's closets (again) to organize and purge things they are outgrowing. I'm hoping to shop for a new rug and throw pillows online soon (we just got a new couch.) All of these other things are just going to have to wait today because my baby girl is growing fast and I must write something down!

Today we had her four month well check-up and she got her shots (at 4 1/2 months). She weighed 15 lbs. 3 oz. and was 25 in. long. Head circumference was 41 cm. She's about 60th percentile for her height and weight. Four month old Anna Kate has the most delightful leg rolls now. She's a doll! I'm enjoying four months WAY more than one month (as I knew I would.) The last time I wrote, I was pretty negative, but truthful. The first couple of months were terribly hard. It wouldn't have been as bad if she was our only child, but obviously we still had to function for Emily and Caleb, too. The little one mainly just needed to be held A LOT. We're able to put her down more now for playtime or naps, but she's still a big cat napper and she still wakes up a lot at night. I'm not sure when/if this will get better. I can't tell you how many times I have to wake her up from a nap to go somewhere or delay the nap altogether until we get somewhere and I can let her sleep on me in the Ergo. I try to stay home in the mornings a few days a week and let her nap before we go anywhere, but naps still get messed up or delayed all the time because of preschool drop-off/pick-up, kindergarten pick-up, church, MOPS, etc. I also can't be super consistent about how often I feed her. I can say that she rarely goes more than three hours without a feeding. There are times I have to feed her again after she just ate a couple of hours ago because we have to pick up Emily from school and I don't want her hungry and crying as soon as we get to the park. Basically, she has to go with the flow. I try to be as consistent as I can within the limits placed on me, but there's certainly no way we can have her on a consistent schedule.

A few Instagram photos:

One Month Old--Very suspicious of mommy's phone in her face!

Two Months Old and wearing big sis's first fancy smocked dress!

Proud of herself in this Four Month old photo. 

Big sis reading to Anna Kate. Emily "babysits" little sis for a few minutes when it's time to put Caleb down for his nap. I'm really close by and can hear if she needs me, of course!

So here's a few milestones I've tried to remember, but haven't yet blogged about:

Smiles/Laughs: Around 8 wks she smiled regularly. I remember that on our flight back to the Bay on January 5th, she smiled and laughed out loud as a passenger and myself talked to her. 

Rolled prone to supine: 2 months. She did this at her two month doctor's check-up. I thought it was just a fluke because of the firm table surface, but she kept doing it. 

Rolled supine to prone: 3 months. At four months, she is a very proficient, roly-polly little baby! Dr. Yoon said she doesn't know if she's ever seen a four month that could flip over supine to prone so quickly and easily. 

Blows raspberries: She started blowing bubbles at three months and is blowing raspberries now at four months.

Reaches for objects: Started doing this between 3-4 months.

Grasps and holds toys given to her: ~4 months

Sits well in Bumbo at four months. (We didn't try it before then. Just borrowed one from a friend a few weeks ago.)

Touches toes with hands: Four months

Army crawls: Yes! This baby army crawls. She can scoot all over our living room on her belly and forearms to go after a toy. I was hoping things would get easier when she was older, but things may get harder first if I have a baby that doesn't sleep that well AND is mobile! 

I'll leave this post today with a few photos we've taken from January-March.