Four Months

I know I say it every month, but I absolutely cannot believe it’s been four months since Bridget came into our lives.

Sometimes I see her working things out in her head, like the wheels in there are turning and every day she is figuring out new things. She can reach up and pull the pacifier out of her mouth when she doesn’t want it, and yet still keep it in her hand. She is very sly about trying to get our hands in her mouth. When she’s being especially cute, I’ll often put my hand on her cheek. At that point it becomes a question of who is faster. Can she turn her head and get my fingers in her mouth before I pull them away? It’s so cute, sometimes I let her win. She still tries to sit herself up while in her bouncy chair, car seat or swing. Yesterday, she was in the bouncy chair and pulled her top half up, reached out and grabbed at the plastic sea horse that hangs down from the toy bar, and put it in her mouth. I just watched her do it for like five minutes, amazed that she was able to manage that, even if she couldn’t keep it in her mouth for very long. She also rolls from back to tummy with great ease. I know that she can go from her tummy to her back because I’ve seen her do it a handful of times, but she doesn’t care to do it often. No, once she felt she mastered that trick, she began to just roll onto her tummy and then try to pull her knees up under her. And she still gets over on her tummy in the night, and then yells for us to come flip her over. Except by the time we get there, she’s wide awake and realizes, “Hey, it’s been a few hours. I could eat!” and then the only thing that will get her back to sleep is nursing. Needless to say, I haven’t been getting very many good nights’ sleep these days.

I wish she’d give me a small period of time to get used to the thing she just did before she starts working on the thing she’s about to do. Just to give me time to adjust.

The other thing that I think is going on is teeth. I can’t be sure. But every few days, she has a day where she is just so completely upset and nothing helps. She doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t want to sleep, she’s not dirty or wet and she has been burped. If she were younger, I might be tempted to call it colic but it’s not. When she has these spells, the drooling is increased, although you wouldn’t really think that was possible, and her need to chew is just manic. And if you allow her to chew on your finger, it’s amazing to me that she maneuvers your finger where she wants it in her mouth, as if she’s applying pressure where it hurts. My mom agreed with me last weekend that it was probably teeth. So when it gets terrible, I give her the tylenol. I try not to do it too much because I don’t want to use it so much that it loses its effectiveness. But since it usually yields a good long sleep, I enjoy the tylenol nights. Don’t call CPS on me, please.

Lately I’ve been taking her on walks around the neighborhood in her stroller. She really enjoys that, and we laugh at her as she rides around with her feet up on the tray in front of her. Like she’s kickin’ back and lettin’ her bitches (her father and me) do all the work. The challenge has been to keep the sun off her face when we make all the turns in the neighborhood. But over the weekend we found the cutest little sunhat for her, and I expect that Jake will get some great pictures of her in it soon. I might have to post one just because I love you all.

And lastly, we bought her an activity center on Saturday. This one, to be exact. She LOVES it. Some of the toys on it are too advanced for her right now (or maybe they are just too boring for her - hard to tell), but she has mastered one and loves to play with it. She’s just barely tall enough to be in the thing, but somehow today managed to turn herself around to a different toy to try to master that one. The best thing about this toy is that it should give me a good long time of security. I no longer really feel safe leaving her in the bouncy chair since she tries to heave herself out of it, but this should last a little bit longer and is only slightly less portable.

If I were a betting woman, I’d say that next month when I do this entry, she’ll be about to crawl. Shelly told me of an acquaintance of hers whose baby walked at nine months. I pitied that woman when I heard the story, but now I’m beginning to think I am going to be that woman.

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