Four Months

4 month stats:

Weight 17 lbs. 2 oz. - 90th percentile
Height 26 inches - 94th percentile
Head circumference 16.7 inches - 90th percentile

Lucy continues to be our happy, content, sweet baby!  I am often in disbelief at how easy she is sometimes, especially in the sleep department.  I guess I had set myself up for expecting her to be a "challenged" sleeper, like Ella was the first 6 months of her life, but Lucy is the complete opposite of her sister in every way.  It still surprises me that we can go to a park, and I can usually set Lucy in the stroller without any movement, strolling, bouncing, etc. and she'll just close her eyes and fall asleep when it's time for a nap.  She amazed me at the Mariner's game we took her to when she was sitting on my lap, and the next thing I knew, she had closed her eyes and gone to sleep - no shushing, bouncing, or walking required!  She still takes pretty short naps (around 45 min. each) throughout the day, but it seems to be enough since she gets a good night's sleep.

She usually sleeps for 11-12 hours at night.  A few weeks ago she went through the "four month sleep regression" in which she was waking up once around 4am, would want to eat and then would go back to sleep.  Really, not that bad.  I think she may have been going through a growth spurt then as she's back to her usual night's sleep from about 8pm-8am.  Every once in a while she'll have a tough time falling asleep and just want to be rocked or cradled for a few minutes.  I actually love those moments as she usually just prefers to be set in her crib at bedtime and will put herself to sleep. 

Our biggest challenge with Lucy so far was that she refused to take a bottle for awhile.  Not the end of the world, but it made it tricky when I wanted to get out for a few hours by myself or Cody and I wanted to go on a kid-free date night.  She started out taking a bottle fine when she was pretty new, but I think she got old enough to realize the difference between bottle and mom :).  We continued trying every different type of bottle and finally found one that I think she actually likes!  So far, she's been fine taking it from Cody, so we'll hope that continues.  I'm thankful I don't have the stress of going back to work in September and wondering if she'll take a bottle, but I am hoping to sub a bit this next school year, so it'd be a lot less stressful if I knew she was fine taking a bottle during the day.

She's started giggling/laughing a lot more this last month.  So, so sweet to hear her laugh.  Ella loves laughing with her and we all enjoy trying to get her to laugh!  She's figuring out how her hands work as she's starting to play with and interact more with toys.  She's discovered that she can pick up toys and often stares in amazement at her hands or the toy she's holding.  The hands discovery is great for hanging onto toys, not so great when she pulls her own binky out and gets upset about it.  She's rolled over once on her own, but isn't doing it consistently yet.  I'm perfectly content with her being immobile for the moment!  She's started mimicking us and the sounds that we make and has started blowing raspberries :).

Some favorite pictures from the last month...

 Her variety of facial expressions crack us up!

Still not a big fan of tummy time, but she'll tolerate it for a few minutes...

 Visiting daddy at his "office"...

The following picture just about sums up their relationship - Ella's "too tight" hugs and Lucy's face saying "help me mom!"

 Loving splashing in the bath!

 Finally growing some dark lashes...for awhile they were so light!

 Hands always in the mouth and lots of drool...

 She's now being "half-swaddled" as she would fight to get her arms out when they were in the swaddle and would keep herself awake doing it...

Starting her early with her reading skills...

Hanging onto her toys (and getting ready for football season)...

 First time on a swing...loved it!

 And just a little video of her blowing raspberries...really not that exciting of a video, but mostly for grandparents who live far away (notice the gash on her cheek, now that she has her arms out at night she's waking up with some cuts on her face!)...