Life is Wonderful: May 2013

Sweet little Josephine is 4 months old!

According to our home scale, Josie weighs 12lb 7oz (gaining 1 pound this month). I can't wait to see what the 'official' weight and height are at her 4 month well check next week.
Josie has almost outgrown her size 1 diapers, but I think she can fit in them for a few more weeks. If not, there are a few packs of size 2 diapers waiting to be used in her closet.
Josie is averaging 4-4 1/2 ounces of formula at each feed. Some feeds she will drink over 6 ounces! She is wanting to be more involved in her feeds, too. She almost always has her hands on the bottle, right by her mouth. Sometimes she will push the bottle away, take a breath, and then pull it back to her mouth. She has even held her bottle on her own a few times.
Josie is still waking up in the middle of the night to eat. At the start of the month she would wake up twice at night. Towards the end of the month she started sleeping more and would only wake up once at night. I hope this is a sign that she is going to start sleeping through the night. That would be wonderful.
We started cereal today. She seems to like it. We are hoping that all the milk she is drinking and the cereal will satisfy her enough so she will sleep longer at night.
My baby girl is rolling over in both directions! I am so proud of her. Of course diaper changes are a little bit more difficult because she tries to roll over in the middle of them. (I really have to watch her on the changing table now; no more leaving her for a few seconds to get something from the bathroom.) It won't be long until she is rolling across the floor!
Due to her rolling over from back to stomach, we are no longer swaddling Josie at night. A few nights after she started rolling in both directions we heard her fussing up a storm on the monitor. Normally she only does this when she is hungry, but she had just ate so we knew that wasn't it. After a minute of her fussing, Joe went up to investigate. She was on her stomach and still swaddled. Eek! The swaddler came right off and have since been packed away. I thought for sure that she would have a hard time sleeping without being swaddled, but it doesn't seem to bother her. Actually, she seems to like sleeping 'free' better because she can move around. Now she either sleeps on her side or on her stomach (we always put her down on her back and she then makes herself comfortable). She sometimes wakes herself up when she can't roll over all of the way (she gets too close to the side of the crib and then gets her arm stuck under her), but for the most part she sleeps soundly until she is hungry.
Josie is becoming even more vocal! Just in the past few days she has turned up the volume. She will happily screech, coo, and babble. Once Joe and I heard her make a 'da' sound, but it hasn't happened since. I can't wait until I hear her first real word. Hopefully that will come soon. Until then I am going to enjoy all her happy screeches and babbling.
Josie had her first runny nose this month. It didn't turn into a full blown cold at least. It was just a little runny for a few days and she was congested at night. She didn't seem bothered by it at all, which is good.
My girl is so darn happy! Her face lights up whenever you talk to her. I love sitting with her and smiling with her. As soon as she wakes up she starts smiling. Usually she won't take a bottle first thing in the morning because she is too busy smiling. She brightens me up whenever I am in a bad mood. Her smile can even revitalize me in the middle of the night when I am exhausted while feeding her. She will look up at me and smile so big that I can't help but laugh and smother her in kisses. I love her smiles!

This is actually a really, really happy smile!
Josie's favorite thing to do this month, besides eat and sleep, is to suck on fabric. She loves grabbing at her dresses or burp cloths and pulling them up to her mouth.
This child sure knows how to sleep. The place she sleeps best is in her car seat. She hates getting into her seat, but once we get the seat into the car she is fast asleep within minutes. Then she will sleep for a long time in the seat. She will sleep through meals at restaurants, trips to the grocery store, and even at home once we get back from wherever we were. Last week I picked the kids up from the sitter's and took them to our 5th grade party and sat Josie's car seat about 10 feet away from a speaker that was blaring music. She slept for at least 25 minutes. Impressive. The only thing you can't do is unbuckle the car seat straps. That will wake her right up (maybe because she doesn't feel as secure?).

Sleeping through lunch.

Josie loves holding onto things while she sleeps. Usually it is her pacifier or some sort of fabric (blanket, burp cloth, etc), but other times she just holds her own hands.

Joe decided to get out Sophie's old Jumperoo for Josie to try. We lowered it to the lowest setting, but of course Josie is still too small for it. So we put a blanket under her feet and it was perfect fit. Of course she is still too small/young to really use it, but she will get there soon enough.

Josie is not quite tall enough to touch the ground.

'Seriously guys? I'm still too small for this thing.'

"Now what am I supposed to do?"

Here are some other pictures from this month:

Celebrating the first day of summer vacation with new sunglasses for all of the fun adventures we will have. (My friend pointed out their wonderfully different facial expressions. Too funny!)

This picture cracks me up!

Josie is such a little cutie pie. Even Sophie calls her that!

These two are happiest when they are together. I can't wait to see what they are like when they get older.

Sophie never minds when Josie grabs at her face. She just laughs and says, "Silly Josie!"

Only one person is posing in this picture and that is me. They were looking at each other and smiling without anyone telling them to. So sweet!

Josie loves sticking her tongue out.

Beautiful girl!

I noticed Josie's nails were getting long but forgot to cut them. The very next day she scratched herself. I learned my lesson and clipped those nails right away.

Such pretty eyes. I wonder what color they will end up being.

Sometimes my happy girl is grumpy.

The girls in their Reds gear.

Everything is A-OK!

I was grading papers on night and Josie was in her Boppy next to me. I wasn't too pleased with some of the responses I was reading and I look over to see Josie giving the same look I was. I had to show this picture to my students the next day to let them know that we were both underwhelmed by their papers.