Four Months

Four months.  A third of a year.  My little growing Quinn.  You are starting to get SO BIG.  I notice it so much more now than I did in the first few months.  It makes me happy and sad at the same time.  Happy because I love watching you grow and develop into the fun little person that you are, but sad that you are starting to become more and more independent with every moment of every day.

I haven’t really been paying attention to the “milestones” you should be meeting.  I don’t want to be that crazy parent who is like, “YOU SHOULD BE COOKING FULL MEALS FOR YOURSELF RIGHT NOW, YOU’RE 4 MONTHS OLD!”  I just soak in what you do every day, and know that you are going forward and not backwards.  I’m not sure if that’s good or not.  You can’t detect it until you’re 14 months or later, but I worry about autism every day.  I don’t know why, you were born a perfect little baby, and we really haven’t had many issues thus far, I just worry that this good streak will end, and something will go wrong.  So just keep moving forward… and I think we will be good.

You love to grab things.  You may have loved it last month… but you really love it this month.  You always have things in your hands.  It doesn’t matter if you’re moving it around, or if it makes noise, you just want to hold on.  Sometimes, it’s to your disadvantage, like if you lose one thing in your hand, you go to your binky and you rip it out to hold you sometimes get upset, because you can’t quite figure out how to put it back in, but you’re getting there.  You have the motion right, just not the direction, so sometimes you just end up chewing on the handle.  One day last week, you were just sitting in my lap sucking on your binky and taking in the world around you.  I was topless since you had just spit up down my shirt, and into my bra (another thing you are awesome at) you took your binky out, looked over, and latched on and started eating.  This is something I will always remember and cherish, and will probably gross you out every time you hear the story, but I already know you are going to be a woman in charge someday.  You knew what you wanted, and you took it, all on your own.  No waiting for other people, just do it!  You also love to grab on to shirts, hair, and to thumbs.  You love to hold on to people’s thumbs and stand on their laps.  You love to use your little legs so much; I’m starting to think you may be running marathons before you ever learn to crawl.

Two weeks ago, we bought you an activity center where you sit in the middle, and the little seat turns around and there’s stuff to do all around you.  While you meet the age requirement, you are a petite one, and we’ve stuffed it with blankets, and put pillows underneath you, but I think it will be at least another month before you can even fit in it.  You are finally starting to chunk up to everyone’s relief.  You are a skinny little girl, and not in a sickly way, but somehow, everyone just expects babies to be chunky… and you are starting to get some rolls.

All in all, you are a pretty happy baby.  Only when you are really tired or your tummy hurts do you really cry.  Most of the times when you need something you just make noises (screams or just random shouts.)  It makes it easier to take care of you, and know when you are really hurting.  We had a tough few months in the beginning with all the crying, and not being able to figure out what’s going on, so I appreciate the break.

For whatever reason (and I am not complaining at all on this one) the car seat has become far less traumatic for you.  Instead of crying and throwing a fit 100% of the time, it’s only about 33% of the time, and it’s usually only when you are tightened in it.  I don’t know if you are realizing that you like the car, or you’ve just given up, because you realize that no matter if you’re crying or not, you’re not getting out of your car seat.  You still sleep on most of the car trips we take.  If you don’t, you rarely cry.  I don’t know if you get to see anything around you, but you seem to relax on car rides, and sometimes we can hear you chatting with yourself.  I hope you keep that, as you grow older.  Daddy has some vacation plans for you, and it would be awesome if you weren’t one of those bratty kids on car rides.  Haha.  You still insist on keeping your 2 am bedtime, but hey, at least it’s routine.  A few nights a week you will go to bed a little earlier at 1 am, and sometimes if I’m really lucky, you’ll even go to bed as early as midnight.  Baby steps though, you’re working on it.

Whenever we go out, everyone always compliments on what a beautiful baby you are.  I know, I see that precious little face every day.  Tell me something I don’t know people.  I may be a little biased though.  They also comment on how good you are.  You really are a pretty well behaved baby.  Your dad makes going out a little bit more dramatic than it needs to be sometimes, but overall you’ve never been a bad baby to have out and about.  You’ve had one melt down in Wal-Mart (who doesn’t want to when they walk into that store?) and it turned out you weren’t feeling well.  Only once has daddy had to take you out of a restaurant.  Even then, he didn’t need to, he just couldn’t get you out of your car seat fast enough to his liking, and so he literally ran out with you in the car seat, got you out, and came back in.  He’s silly like that.  All you wanted was to look around, and you were content once you were able to see over the table.

The highlight of this last month was a joy that I can’t even begin to describe accurately.  It was about 11:30 at night, and you and I were sitting on the bed while daddy was getting ready for work.  Landon and Lucy (our dogs) were running around the house being themselves.  Sometimes when he gets ready for work, your dad will play with the dogs, and this was one of those nights.  When your dad had stopped playing, Landon decided that he wasn’t done.  He picked up his toy, and began shaking it with his head ferociously, and throwing it up into the air.  You thought this was the funniest thing, and we heard you laugh for the very first time.  Landon caught it too, because he kept doing things to make you laugh, and it went on for about 5 minutes.  It was such a magical moment; you have such a sweet, precious little laugh.  Daddy loved hearing it so much, he was almost late for work that night, and bragged about your laughter to his co-workers.  Sadly, you’ve only laughed one more time since then, and it was caused by the same events.  Daddy and I have been trying in vain to get you to laugh at us, to no avail.  It will come someday I’m sure, and someday, we will forget to enjoy your laughter as much as we did on that day, because we will hear it so often, but I will never forget that moment that we all three got to share, and neither will daddy.

Today also marks the day, one year ago, that I found out I was pregnant with you.  I thought I was full of joy and love for you then, but little did I know what was to come.  I love you more and more every day.  Sometimes I feel like my heart may explode when I look at you.  You are so amazing, and I am so glad I had a part in creating you, and that I can call you my daughter.

I love you,

Momma