Sophie is four months old as of yesterday. We had her well-child visit, and she is just perfect. She’s a nice little chunk, has grown three inches in the last two months, and has a smallish head just like her daddy (the poor guy has to wear youth sizes in fitted baseball caps). As the nurse practitioner was asking me all the normal well-child questions, I realized yet again how wonderful life is. Sophie is a happy baby most of the time. At this point in Julie’s life, I was practically breaking down in tears begging the doctor for help figuring out what was wrong with my baby, how could we help her stop screaming all the time, figure out what was hurting her so constantly. Well, life is pretty good.
This morning, Julie demonstrated again what a great big sister she can be. Sophie was fussing in her crib as I finished my shower – she had been asleep when I went in, and woke up and started fussing just a little. Julie came in and told me she was awake. “Sophie’s eyes are open. Mama go pick her up.” Julie has also been known to gently put Sophie’s pacifier back in her mouth if I ask her to. Although Julie seems somewhat oblivious, Sophie loves watching Julie’s antics and will give Julie some of her biggest gummy grins ever.
Sophie makes the cutest laughs. They are sort of grunty Huh Huh Huh kind of laughs interspersed with squeals and giggles. The best way to get her to laugh is to laugh at her. She’ll do something cute that makes me laugh, and before I know it she is laughing with me. Raspberries and tummy-tickling are somewhat less effective, although so much fun to do I can hardly stop myself most of the time.
Sophie has been working her abdominal muscles pretty hard the last couple of weeks especially. She tries to sit up straight when she’s stuck in any baby-holding device like the car seat or her bouncy seat or swing, and if I lay her down awake on the baby gym mat or in her crib, she immediately starts trying to roll over. In fact,
Her favorite toy right now is her hands. She loves bringing them together, waving them around, putting them in her mouth to explore them fully. The many rattles I keep trying to hand her are somewhat interesting for a moment, especially when I am shaking them for her, but she doesn’t really have the control yet to hold them herself for long without flinging them across the room.
I keep begging time to slow down right now. I want this phase to last longer. Before we know it she will be crawling, and after that it will be pulling up and walking, then running and chasing after Julie. All of those stages will be fun in their own right, I know. But this one is pretty awesome right now.
Sorry, I should have some amazing pictures to go with this post and I don’t. I’ll do my best to take some good ones this week.