4 Months Old...

At 4 Months old Kat is shaping up to be just a really fun little girl. She's still a huge clown, if she does something that makes you laugh she usually tries to do it again... and when you laugh she gives a huge delighted smile. She's crying a little more than normal lately because she's teething, and we're starting to deal with some separation anxiety already. If she knows I'm in the house she won't calm down until I take her, no matter what Tim does she'll just keep getting more and more upset. If I'm not in the house he can calm her down. Strange!

We're really trying to get Tim to hold her more and spend more time with her in order to get her more comfortable with him when she's upset. She's already pigeonholed us as- if she wants to play, she wants Daddy- but when the cards are down and something is wrong she only wants Mommy. Unfortunately he usually tends to hand her to me when something is wrong, and it's culminated in this. I think it really makes him sad that he can't comfort her, and realizes he needs to be there for her more when something is wrong and not just when it's fun. Parenting is a learning process, and this is just another lesson. It's definitely helping my stress level too, it's hard on me when I'm the one caring for her 24/7 but especially when she's upset.

She's mimicking a LOT... faces, gestures, vocal cues, everything. We're working on teaching her sign language (just started about 2 weeks ago) and if she's feeling interested and involved she'll sign back to you, even though she hasn't connected the meaning yet. So far she's signed 'milk' and 'eat'- both really easy hand gestures. Obviously they're modified since babies don't have fine motor skills, but as soon as that light bulb comes on and she connects the motion to the item I think she'll be communicating like crazy. Already she's constantly chattering and cooing. She loves her little mirror and talks to the baby in the mirror a lot. She is a reluctant giggler, she'll giggle and stop to listen to figure out where that sound came from... but she giggles more and more as time goes on. She smiles ALL the time, it's a normal expression for her, until the camera comes out of course!

Physically she's growing right on par for her age, she's just the right weight and height for her age according to the doctor. She is on the verge of sitting unassisted, in fact she does it for short periods of time. She's also lunging, all the time, everywhere. If you're holding her and she wants something she'll just lunge at it. It's made learning to sit up interesting, because she'll sit up and look around, see something across the room, and lunge at it- inevitably falling on her hands or her little face. She's undaunted by this and just keeps doing it. She will commando crawl if you lay her on her stomach, though she doesn't really have a lot of control over direction. She has figured out forward and backward, but nothing else just yet.

At the doctor's office earlier this week she was lunging at the doctor trying to grab his stethoscope during the exam, he just laughed and was surprised she was doing it this early. Especially since she still hasn't rolled over yet, the doctor told us it looks like she just skipped right past that skill and is on the verge of learning to crawl very soon. He said that he's seeing more and more babies skip the rolling over step and go right to sitting up and crawling. He said from what he can tell she might be an early crawler, but we'll see. Apparently rolling over is a mobility thing, and if she's learned she can scoot to what she wants she likely has no real desire to roll over even though she's physically able and strong enough. Earlier this week she scooted off my lap and over to Tim's lap on the other end of the couch... it took her about 10 minutes, but she was feeling pretty determined and got herself over there!

She's doing great on solids, she loves to eat. She's trying to grab and drink from our cups when we leave them unattended to, but I think it'll be a little longer before we move to a sippy cup. So far she's had Rice Cereal, Bananas, Avocados, and Carrots. The only dislike so far is Avocados, she loves Bananas and will eat Carrots without stopping so we have to cut her off :o) Next week we're trying Apples. We're staggering Fruit, Veggie, Fruit and so on. Dr. Das said that we can start her on drinking from cups whenever we feel she's ready. He's totally okay with us starting solids a little earlier than 6 months, and stated she was an early physical developer and she was ready for solids. It's more about the kid than the calendar, as long as it's after the 3 month mark anyway.

So thats our 4 month update- a tad late but better late than never! :O)