Baby MCVA – July 22, 2017

Our sweet girl has reached four months of age at the time of this photo – so July 22, 2017. She loved being propped up on my Boppy nursing pillow at this point, sitting up with some support behind her and playing with toys, putting them in her mouth. She loves this frog, which is part of an Infantino play mat we were given as a shower gift. The play mat is great because you can take down or put up the toys – she still loves the toys (some have crinkle paper, others have rings that clink together, another has a teething-friendly surface) now that the mat is put away! Here it is:

The Boppy pillow cover is not one of the standard ones, the one pictured is a Classic Plus cover. A cousin gave me a Classic Plus one in pink polka dot with stripes on the other side. The material is softer, more like a microfiber material than the basic cotton of the original. They also seem to not shrink or stiffen up when machine-washed, and fit onto the pillow much more easily between washes. I definitely have found that the Boppy Classic Plus covers are better long-term purchases, especially if you are exclusively or frequently breast-feeding!

Between her third and fifth months, things were a blur due to busy summer activities and comings and goings. So as I share things for her fourth month of life and things that have happened, please don’t blame me if I post some duplicates of events that I may have mentioned last month, haha!

• 11 pounds, 6 ounces
• 25.5″ long (officially over 2 feet tall/60 cm!)
• No more swaddling due to Margaret’s mobility
• Started her on oatmeal due to her continued low weight gain (but still showing general growth and good diaper output)
• Reaching for dangling objects (like on tummy time or on the mat)
• Brings both hands together
• Her first laugh! Finally!
• Can see across the room
• Vowel-consonant sounds
• Sits by self with minimal support
• Opens mouth for spoon – she hates/hated oatmeal. We diluted it with pureed apples and it still was a struggle bus for our girl. She knew right away we were tricking her. It made getting her to gain weight hard. Having to have her go on some solids so soon was my first moment of “Mom guilt” – you question yourself – is my breastmilk not enough? Did I do something wrong? It was one of those moments where I had to tell myself that guilting is silly and does not solve anything. Don’t let yourself drown in anxiety of things you cannot control. I tried my best to help her gain by EBF but it didn’t pan out, at least she still was able to enjoy breast milk! This point was just another stop on our journey of mommy-daughter time. Plus, adding some solids this early was great for M as he could spend more time bonding with our girl!
• Rolls over and back
• Makes two-syllable sounds – MAMA was her first word!!
• First babysitter happened at this point in time – our cousin Emma – she is one of Margaret’s favorite people now! We are so lucky she is in college nearby and hope she can have fun with Margaret some this summer.
• She started trying to hold her bottle herself.
• Peek-a-boo fascinates her
• Loves to chew on objects
• Sleeps on average 12 hours a night and two quasi-naps a day (more like 1 and only occasionally)
• Rolls all the way around!

So many developments happened during those four weeks of time! Babies are amazing little humans learning so much so quickly. As I said above, the summer was busy. Our good friends The Lins finished his medical fellowship at UVA, so they returned home to Mississippi which was super sad. We were happy that their life would follow a more normal schedule, but we knew we would miss them and having them around Margaret! MCVA’s first July 4th happened which meant typically we would go to my hometown for fireworks and fun, but M had to work so I made us country style ribs, bought him some Pearl’s cupcakes for his birthday (the 5th) and dressed MCVA in a cute outfit. Lemons – lemonade! I got a weird summerlike flu bug and it happened to hit when M’s childhood friends were passing through town. Since the wife has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer I didn’t want to give her what I might have which was heartbreaking but they had a lovely time meeting our sweet baby girl and having a nice lunch visit. Another group of friends got to see us when I was feeling better – the husband was a childhood buddy of M’s and the wife (might as well be a professional runner!) came over with their daughter to meet MCVA on her 4 month bday. Lastly we enjoyed a weekend at my parents house to have a quasi-belated birthday for M and to visit my Grandmothers. We felt like at this point in the summer she was in the clear and ready to socialize! It was wonderful to hear from everyone that she appeared to be social and didn’t dislike being passed around the room which made me so happy. Apparently not all kids are like that and that’s fine, but since I am social it definitely made me feel good to know she wasn’t having a hard time around strangers.

Cute as a button in a bow made by my cousin LCJP and an outfit that was both my brother and mine growing up!