Seventeen Weeks!

Weight: We got the official stats this week at Lizzie's four-month (!) appointment. Lizzie Bear is now 11 pounds, 6 1/2 ounces and is 24 1/2 inches long. This means she's up six pounds, two ounces from her birth weight and up 5 1/2 inches from her initial length. I find it insane just how fast she's grown (especially in length!), as well as the fact that she's just three feet shorter than I am. Weeeird.

Sleep: Lizzie is an awesome sleeper. She still varies from  night-to-night, in terms of how many times (or I should say if) she wakes up. Some nights, she doesn't wake at all until 5:00 a.m., and then goes back to sleep again after eating. Others, she'll wake up at 2:00 and 5:00 to eat. I've noticed that if the bedroom is cool, she'll wake more often, so I'm going to start adding another blanket to her at night. One night, she slept clear through the night, from 8:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. -- and we had to wake her at 6:30 that time. The thing we're blessed with is that Lizzie girl always has no trouble going right back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night. According to daycare, as well as our own weekend observations, her naps continue to be short and sweet, unless someone is holding her -- then she'll sleep the day away! :)

Medical Issues: Not a one :) We're so blessed. Lizzie's doctor said she's looking fabulous at her four-month appointment this last week!

Clothes: Hanging out in our 0 to 3 month clothes right now, and not showing any signs of growing out of them any time soon.

Socialite!: Lizzie traveled to Fargo with us last Sunday for my Uncle Dave's birthday party, where she met another Lizzie (who will be joining the DeCock clan in the future, as she just became engaged to my cousin... yahoo!), and saw relatives that she hasn't seen since she was just a few weeks old! She also saw her aunts, uncles and cousins, of course :) Otherwise, she's just hanging out with her daycare kiddos. Apparently she enjoys watching all of the action that the older infants give :)

Diet: Still nursing Lizzie exclusively.

Baby Gear Love: Loving our Taggies blanket, as well as the play gym and the Bright Starts Activity Bar on our carseat :)

Crying: She's a sweet girl! Only cries when she's hungry or tired basically :)

Mommy News: I've returned to teaching Pilates again for the fall schedule at the Y. I was a little uneasy about adding something else to my schedule, but it's great because I pick Lizzie up right after school on Fridays, head home and play for an hour, and then Andy comes home from work and I take off to go teach, so I feel better leaving her because she's getting some Daddy time. Anyway, I'd taken a few weeks off and my glutes, abs and thigh muscles could definitely feel it the next day.

In other Mommy News, I think I've finally hit the stage where the hair that didn't fall out while pregnant is now falling out. I don't notice that it's excessive, as I have heard from some people, but instead more typical of what it was like before I got pregnant. Plus, I have lots of hair, so I don't think I'll really notice a change in thickness because of it.

Finally, on the daycare front: I'm still uneasy about the whole "working mom" thing, in all honesty. But I do love my job and my third graders, so that helps during the day. And really, I can't complain: baby girl's across the street, so I still nurse exclusively for all feedings except for one the entire week. Still, it makes me sad that I only get to enjoy her awake for a few hours. It is getting better, though -- less tears than there were those first few weeks.

We're also starting to get serious about buying a high chair and about deciding how and when to start solids. I'm intrigued by "baby-led weaning" and am doing some reading on it for the time being. I'll keep you posted on what that is and what we decide in the coming weeks.
 

I'm just loving every moment I have with this sweet babe. She loves to dance, and she loves to be sung to. She's getting bigger now, heftier. When I rock her to sleep at night, I wrap my arms all the way around her and rest my head on hers and sing her to sleep with songs I've sung her since she was in my tummy. Sometimes I wonder if she'll start singing "Imagine" by John Lennon, or "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (amongst others) and know all the words when she's a toddler. I hope she can remember my voice and how I used to sing to her every night. Some nights, we sit in her rocker, long after she's fallen asleep. And while I have buckets of other things to do, I don't really care. Because I want to do that instead. And in those moments, I pray my prayers of thanks, for every giggle, every dirty diaper, for each finger and toe, for this little snuggle bug to cuddle. And I pray that God will help me remember just what she smelled like, what she looked like while so peacefully asleep, and especially, what it felt like to hold her in my arms. I wish I could bottle those moments up.

Milestones: I am continually blown away with how much our sweet girl is changing. She is babbling like nobody's business, and her giggles are getting easier and easier to elicit and more and more common all the time! Love it. Her head control is also very impressive these days, getting better and better all the time. She's just started to find and grab onto her feet, which has been so sweet to witness! She's tracking with impressive accuracy now, and doesn't mind tummy time anymore. She's also just started to reach for toys on her tummy a teensy bit.