4 months with Lyla

Lyla is 4 months old! 

Our baby girl is now 14 pounds, 10 ounces and 25 3/4 inches long.  She is in the 58th percentile for weight and 92nd percentile for height--long and lean!  I was a teeny bit worried about the numbers we'd see at this appointment; baby girl refuses to take a bottle, so her feedings have taken a bit of a hit.  Thankfully, she is growing just fine!

It's been a month full of adjustments for all of us.  I went back to work full-time after Labor Day. It was strange; I missed my sweet girl like crazy, but being back at work felt oddly normal.   Jake and I have both rearranged our schedules a bit in order to spend more time with Lyla; on Mondays, Jake works a half day, and on Wednesdays and Fridays, I only work a half day in the office and work the remaining hours from home.  I did NOT anticipate how very difficult life was going to be as a working wife and mama.  But that's a post for another time.  As I mentioned earlier, bottles are still a no-go.  It's so very sad.  After 4 weeks of trying, we've decided it's best for me to come home mid-day to feed her--it makes life so much better for her and for her caretaker (our next door neighbor/friend watches her, which is seriously the most dreamy scenario).  And, getting to see her mid-day on my regular 8 hour days is a huge perk!  Lyla has made up for her lost daytime feedings by waking up around 2-3 am for a full feeding.  This was rough after weeks of her sleeping through the night, but it's preferable to my worrying about her not eating enough.  She also experienced her first cold my second week back at work.  I know, it was just a cold, but having a sick baby is the worst.  She's on the mend now, but all of that to say, the month was a bit rough.

Ok, we've gotten the challenging stuff out of the way, so I can go ahead and gush about how much I love this tiny human.  Oh, my heart.  This baby girl is my joy.  We are having SO much fun with her.  She started recognizing us this past month and actively leaning toward and (sort of) reaching for us.  This is endearing when you're there to pick her up and heartbreaking when you leave her.  She has discovered her voice and makes the funniest sounds exercising her vocal cords.  Lately, she has become more interested in the tactile world around her and scratches her little fingernails on different textures and fabrics--we've got some nice scratch marks on our leather chair.  And she is drooling like crazy and sticking just about everything in her mouth.  Gross.

Her personality just comes out a little more each week... and we are definitely noticing some trends. In addition to the stubbornness we've experienced with the whole non-bottle feeding thing, her determination is off the charts. I wish you could see it in action.  In my last blog post, I wrote about how she was trying to roll from her back to her belly (she's been able to roll from belly to back since she was 8 weeks old)--well, she managed to do it later that same night.  After that, she became obsessive about it.  She knew that she was capable of it and wouldn't let it go until she had it mastered.  She figured out that her arms were getting in the way and resorted to putting them behind her head and curling up like she was going to do a sit-up.  From there, she would roll onto her side and attempt to get enough momentum to roll onto her belly.  This resulted in many failed attempts,but she just kept trying.  As in, my little 3-month-old was actually short of breath with all of the effort and the girl just wouldn't quit.  And she never got upset or frustrated!  Needless to say, within a couple of days of her first roll from back to belly, she was able to do it like it was nobody's business. Unsurprisingly, our now 4-month-old is absurdly close to crawling.

Now that we are officially in the fall season, Jake and I are SO excited for all of the upcoming holidays--Lyla's firsts!  We know she is too little to understand it all, but we can't wait to celebrate as a family of three.  In the more immediate future, we are looking forward to Lyla's inaugural San Diego trip later this month--we can't wait for our SD friends and family to meet her!

Our fourth month with Lyla in photos: