Four months

One day last week I was feeling particularly sleep deprived, so in the afternoon, after nursing Adriana to sleep in the armchair, I stayed where I was and closed my eyes. I couldn't actually fall asleep, but it was nice to relax there with her sleeping on my chest, her head nestled into my neck. We used to nap that way when she was brand new. But now she's big enough that when she woke up, she pushed up so that she could look me in the face. I smiled at her, and she smiled right back. I felt sentimental and happy.

Then she spit up down the front of my shirt.

Even though I was tired that day, mostly I'm not too sleep deprived. For the past month Adriana has been waking up a little bit more than she used to, but it hasn't too bad. She nearly always goes down at a reasonable hour, and when she wakes up to eat she falls back to sleep immediately. But the real reason I'm so well rested is that after she wakes up in the morning to eat, Brian takes her downstairs and plays with her while he gets ready for work, allowing me to sleep in. And on the days he works from home, I sometimes even manage to sleep until 8:30 or 9, which leaves me rested and full of energy--and in shock as I remember that in my "past life" I was the sort of morning person who slept in until 7:30 on weekends.

Sometimes I think she's waking up more often because she is teething, but so far I can't feel anything through her gums. Sometimes I think it's a "sleep regression" because she's developing new skills, like a couple of weeks ago when she began rolling over. She still only goes back to front, and it involves a lot of wiggling and grunting. The first few times she was unhappily surprised to find herself on her belly, but I'm pretty sure at this point that she's doing it on purpose. She is still fascinated by her own hands, and I laughed yesterday as she moved one back and forth in front of her face, opening and closing her fingers with amazement. She is also reaching for her feet these days, and studying them carefully.

She's very aware of the world around her at this point, the world beyond her own hands and feet. Nursing her anywhere but at home can be a nightmare, as she is too distracted to really eat and spends most of her time pulling away from me to look around. She smiles at strangers in the grocery store, and coos and laughs when they talk to her. She likes toys now, and the touch-and-feel books we have are getting a lot of use. Her favorite toy, though, is the cat, and Adriana is always trying to reach out and touch her. At one point I glanced down at where baby was lying on the floor to see that Cecilia had settled down beside her. I wasn't worried about them, since I was right there, but I clearly wasn't paying enough attention, because a couple of minutes later when I looked, Adriana had grasped the cat's tail (the most fascinating part of her, since it sways back and forth and fits so nicely in a fist) and the cat was looking at me as if to say, "If you don't put an end to this, I will." I quickly released the cat and promised to watch them more carefully together. I think Cecilia will soon learn to steer clear of the baby.

It's amazing to me how much she's grown in the past four months. On Monday we'll have a pediatrician visit and I'll get to find out exactly how big this child has gotten, but I think she's about fifteen pounds and probably 26 or 27 inches long. Last week, after a middle-of-the-night diaper blow out that required a "costume change" for both of us, the first sleeper I tried to change Adriana into didn't fit. She had gotten too long and couldn't stretch out her legs. So, over the weekend I went through the box of clothes that I've been waiting for her to grow in to, and picked out most of the "6-9 months" items, and that's what she's been wearing for the past week. I don't know who comes up with these sizes, since I've never met anyone who found that they were accurate.

Our love for her grows faster than she does. That sound horribly corny, but I can't think of a better way to put it. In the first days after her birth, I would look at her and cry because I was so overwhelmed by the strength of my love for her. If someone had told me that my love would only get bigger, I don't think I would have believed them. I've got the crying pretty much under control now. But every day I notice little changes in her. Every day she laughs when I blow raspberries on her belly. Every day I cradle her in my arms as I nurse her and look into her eyes. And I think that everything is just perfect.