4 months + 4 days

Whew!  The fact that I can form a witty enough title to make the lateness of this post secondary makes me feel better. 

This month has been great.  Greta is sleeping wonderfully (except for the week following that post where I said how great she'd been sleeping... so don't tell anyone that I said she's sleeping well....).  I finally bit the bullet and decided to stay home.  So glad about that.  She's napping pretty terribly, meaning she's often in bed by 6:30 or 7:00.  I remember how awful it was when I was getting home at 5:30, trying to get dinner ready, MJ was a hot mess, and then in bed an hour later.  So little time together, and so far from quality. 

Life has been busy, and Greta gets dragged along to all of it.  Showing the rental to prospective tenants.  Swim lessons with MJ (where she swam by herself for the first time tonight!! Proud mama!)  Walks to try to fit in some exercise.  At some point I know she'll be less flexible, but thankfully not yet.  For a while I tried to have her home to nap, but she is so unpredictable there's really no point.

Nursing is... okay.  This was the month without pumping.  Breastfeeding as it's meant to happen.  And it has mostly worked.  For about 4 or 5 days we even went without bottles.  But then she refused to take a bottle as we were leaving for a date night, and since then I've been giving her a bottle a day.  Usually it's formula or thawed breastmilk, pumping seems to interfere with our schedule.  Inevitably, if I pump she's hungry 10 minutes later.  So I just don't pump and have accepted that she gets some formula.  At our 4 month checkup she had dropped a bit on the weight chart, and the pediatrician encouraged giving her a bit more formula, so about a bottle and a half a day.  Which I actually haven't had much luck doing yet, because she won't really take it.  So it's possible she's just leveling out to a smaller size, just as MJ did.  I'm not too concerned about it.  In fact, I'm not too concerned what happens at this point.  She's 4 months old, two rounds of vaccinations, and if breastfeeding doesn't continue to work then so be it.  I like how easy it makes night time, because I can doze while nursing her and don't have to prepare a bottle.  But apart from that, I don't care so much.  And if she was eating more during the day maybe she wouldn't need to eat at night. 

Watching MJ and Greta become sisters is glorious.  Tonight MJ discovered that she can make Greta laugh, and it was wonderful to watch.  She would stick her face right in Greta's and laugh maniacally; it looked annoying to me, but Greta loved it so MJ kept doing it.  Yesterday, as MJ and Greta cuddled while we read books, Greta kept pulling MJ's hair.  But MJ was super patient and just held her hand so she couldn't do it, rather than getting upset.  I'm so hopeful they'll have a good relationship. Only time will tell. 

Greta continues to be mellow.  I think this may be my favorite age.  She smiles and laughs all the time, sleeps pretty well and is not yet difficult to watch.  She's cuddly and loves to be held.

This month the smiles were effortless.  As were the dimples.