London Claire is Four Months Old

Age: four months and three days (see, I'm getting better!)
Height: 25.25 inches (84th %)
Weight: 15 lbs 6 oz (also 84th %)
Hair Color: brown / red in the right light, and falling out quickly :( I picked whole clumps out of her crib this morning, it is heart breaking. her head is in the 89th % and her hair can't keep up!
Eye Color: blue - beautiful blue!

Favorite Outfit: she wore a sweatsuit to the fair last weekend. babies in hoodies, is there anything cuter?

how adorable is that hat?!

but i also really loved when she wore her zebra legwarmers for the first time. so edgy!

onesie from her godmother, "aunt kiki"

Sleep: well ... it's a lot of "one step forward, two steps back" these days. every time i feel like we're making progress for a couple of days, she'll revert. and nothing seems to work for the 4-7am hours. we practiced a 7-10-2 schedule (modified based on what time she went to bed), which basically means I'm dream feeding her right before I go to sleep. it helps some, or at least it did for the first few days, and the pediatrician recommends the dream feed to keep her sleeping longer. however, she told us that we're never going to get her sleeping more until she learns to self-soothe. if you don't know what that means, it's three wretched little letters ... C-I-O. Cry it out. I tried last week while Ben was traveling for work, and she screamed for an hour before I gave up. we tried that twice, and I decided she wasn't ready. Dr. Seidel said she is ready, and that if we want her to sleep, we have to commit. so last night, we committed... sort-of. after three hours, I gave up (can you tell who the "good cop" is in this situation?) and went in to nurse her. but we did not go in for the rest of the night (3-7) and she was able to get herself back to sleep pretty quickly at 5 and 6. maybe this is progress? we'll try it again tonight. one thing I do know, CIO is probably the most controversial baby issue - even more so than breastfeeding. everyone has an opinion but here's the thing - if you're not in support of it, i don't need to hear your's.
Eating: we have upped the bottles to 6oz (4x / day, though she doesn't always eat all four at daycare). we are cluster feeding in the evenings to stock up for bed, but I've broken her of the nursing to sleep which is a huge success in my book. and then the dream feed at 11ish. middle of the night - TBD (normally I've been nursing her twice), then she eats when she wakes up and tops off when I drop her off at school. Dr. Seidel gave us the go-ahead to start foods but recommended we wait until her sleeping is more consistent so as to know if something is affecting her tummy. i gave her a tiny taste of ice cream with a spoon and she enjoyed it, and did pretty well, so I think starting foods is going to be fun.
Illness: we are both still taking the probiotics and that seems to have helped with her gas, but we are still getting the occasional green / sour smelling diaper. gross, i know. she now has ridiculous diaper rash, a rash under her neck from all the drooling, and thrush. awesome, mother of the year right here. so we have her on antibiotics for the thrush and hoping it clears up within a week. and i think we'll start pulling her off the zantac once her sleeping is more consistent as well, which is great news!
Development: she loves to stand - prefers it to anything else. and she'll even "walk" her feet if we're holding her hands. she can stand up for a few seconds leaning against the couch or her crib, which is impressive to me. she can sit in the recliner in her nursery pretty well. she mimics sounds like "hi" and "i love you" with her intonation and such, which is adorable.

oh me? just standing around, nbd.

Movement: she's still trying to do "crunches" where she pulls her head up if she's reclining in any way. she rolls over frequently from belly to back, but hasn't mastered back to belly yet (which the dr said is ok). no crawling, but she'll scoot herself around in circles.

Favorite toy: her small sheep that my mom got her. it's supposed to be a scentsy sheep but we took the fragrance out. it's just small enough for her to cuddle with it so i give it to her in her crib and on the changing pad to help calm her in the mornings and evenings. she's also starting to like her rubber ducky in the bath, and still enjoys the bouncy seat and exersaucer.

snuggling with her little lamb

Funniest habit: she has discovered her voice and loves to shriek loudly as part of conversation. this makes her laugh, which of course makes us laugh. she also has a variety of cries, one of which is like she is yelling at us and sounds so angry, and another is a blood curdling horror movie scream. i feel bad when we laugh at her but ... not that bad.

Best moment of last week: she was facetiming with my mom and waved goodbye. twice. genius baby! and when i show her pictures on the phone, she swipes at them. and she hung up on ben's mom twice. the fact that our four month old is so tech-savvy probably speaks to the fact that a) she's brilliant and b) we're on our phones too much. and unrelated, but last night i put her down in her crib (we've been working on putting her down "drowsy but awake) and walked away - not a peep! she was restless for a few minutes but then went right to sleep with no crying. maybe it's because of the shots yesterday, but i'll take it. that was a pretty awesome moment considering it's something we've been working on for a few days.
What I'm looking forward to: taking her to florida next month for thanksgiving, where she'll get to meet lots of great aunts and uncles and second cousins and cousins once removed, etc. OH! and dressing her up for halloween. she's going to be ridiculously adorable ... IF she'll wear the hood.

And of course, I have to post a few favorites from her baptism. she was so good, all weekend, despite missing naps and being passed around to all sorts of new people. it was magical!

taking a little break from all the people

monogrammed bloomers to match her monogrammed bib

the bonnet was short-lived but oh! how cute