A Mother's Hands

Watching my body, mind, and heart transition into those of a mother has been interesting. One of the more interesting changes has been in my hands. They are more sensitive than they ever used to be. After going out shopping or running errands, my hands feel the build up of external grime in a way I never used to feel before. I'm motivated to wash my hands way more often than I ever used to. I'm sure this is because my hands are in charge of this little four month old daughter of mine. They bathe, change diapers, serve as pacifiers, teething toys, mobiles, tickle monsters, pick noses and ears and serve as overall buffers, protectors, and mediums between Kate's world and the rest of the world. Consequently, they are not the soft, sweet things they used to be. I'm sure the process will only continue as more years of housework and mothering take their toll. But, I'm proud of these hands -- they are given to us to use in the work God has placed before us.

Growth Spurt & La Leche

Kate seems like she's growing up all in a hurry. The 4month mark was pretty significant for her. It seems like she gained a pound in a week (which really can't be true!) and her steadiness also improved dramatically in the two weeks spanning her 4 month birthday. I put her in the ExerSaucer a couple of days ago and she LOVED it! I snapped a pic, but haven't downloaded it yet. She can spin around and play with all the toys and gets a little frustrated that she can't personally put one of the flowers IN HER MOUTH. She is really communicating a lot, too. The tooth sighting may have been a bit premature. I can see a white speck darker than the rest of the gum, but it has made no progress. She has much more control over her hands and arms. She grabs her toys and likes to gum them up.

Last week I looked in our freezer at the milk I had stored up and saw that some of it was about to expire, so I thought I'd see if Kate would take her first bottle. No way! She did not like the flow or the feel of the Dr. Brown's bottle. We stuck with it for 10 minutes or so, and she only drank 1 oz (and not much of that actually ended up in her tummy). I decided to try another shape of bottle thanks to a tip from Amy. I picked up the AVENT Tempo, and we tried again that evening -- No Problem. Their nipples come in various speeds/sizes (I bought the slow 0-3 mo. one) and they are also much wider. On the packaging it says that it's made for combining with breastfeeding. Well, it certainly worked for us.

BOYS MAY NOT CARE TO READ FURTHER
One thing that makes me quite sad is that when I was trying to pump extra trying to save up for a rainy day I could only get like 2 oz at a time, but Kate probably drinks 6 oz or so, so it's roughly 3 pumping times to one feeding time. I don't pump anymore, so I might get more out if I tried these days, but there has really been no need. I thought I would need to do that with working, but it has worked out so perectly with the nursing! It's a good thing because in all my plannings, I didn't ever think about needing to pump AT WORK! That would have been weird -- sequestering myself in the ladies' bathroom with the hum of the pump!

Speaking of breastfeeding, I recently saw the weirdest segment on the morning news show about cross breast feeding and wetnursing. Apparently this is a movement in the U.S. There's two varieties: the professional and the informal or casual sharing. One of the ladies had been a wetnurse to 40 kids or something, but she did it for FREE!!! Think about how much time that takes? Apparently the women who do this professionally charge something like $1000/ week. Some of the issues that were brought up were the health of the wetnurse and what they are doing for their own child. The two panelists they had on seemed to be really against the professional type but they differed on this whole cross breastfeeding among friends. They didn't go into a lot of details about how people actually do it. All in all, I just thought WEIRD!

4 Month Old

Tuesday, Kate turned 4 months old. It's incredible how much they actually change in just 4 months (or one, for that matter!). Kate had a great 4 month checkup. Her growing spurt has slowed down somewhat. She weighed 12 lbs 5.5 oz , and measured 23.6 in. She was completely fascinated by the Dr. T. She put on all her charm.

Fun Facts:
She turned over again after a hiatus of a couple of weeks. This time she was much quicker.
She started gurgling just this morning. She's very proud of this!
She noticed her hands this morning also. Had a good time playing with them, too!
Her favorite stories are Beatrix Potter & Curious George -- Daddy loves reading to her.

My Baby

Kate is growing up so much. I can tell she makes big leaps in just a week or so. She can hold her own weight while standing so much better than last week. She doesn't mind being put on her belly very much because she can support her head so much better, and she's learned that she can rest in that position by putting her head down and it is not the end of the world. She has retrograded on the turning over bit. She hasn't really done it again since that last time, without some help. I'm eager to know how much she weighs & what her length is next week at the ped. I'm so grateful that I can be aware of all these milestones and spend so much time with her. I'm wondering how my subsequent children will fare. How can I possibly spend as much time with them playing & reading?

Also, this is a reminder to all you mommies out there: Babies can hear & distinguish sounds from all different languages until their 1st birthday. . so if you ever want them to speak a language with the chance of not having a American accent, let them listen to other languages. They record an imprint of the sounds and later on, they can "hear" the differences between Spanish Rr and r. And, it gives them a leg up on pronouncing them, if they can actually distinguish. I sing & read to Kate in Spanish a bit, and we just recently got a cool CD that has rhymes, songs and chants on it -- just for babies. It's even advisable to introduce multiple languages. . so who knows, maybe Kate and I will learn French together.

Introducing Mr. Jeremy Monkey

Kate has found a friend. She has outlasted my desires to make her love Froggie or little Lamb. She does like Mr. Turtle a good deal, but nothing compares to her reaction to Jeremy Monkey. She smiles at him and gives him love bites (not unlike her cousin Lydia). She even cuddled him as she took her nap today. Jeremy is the cousin of Curious George who he favors a good bit in looks, although we hope he will be a bit better behaved.


Another first for Kate -- she got tickled and actually laughed! I was changing her and decided to give her a few little kisses on her neck. Lo and behold, she chuckled. Josh just got to hear her do it tonight. So far she has only repeated the experience ON THE CHANGING TABLE -- go figure!



Auntie Jen lent us the Bumbo, and Kate loves it! She sits in it and watches me make dinner. Tonight she even sat at the dinner table. She's definitely growing up and becoming more interested in the world around her.

Vacation Baby

As travel agent for this spring vacation to Hilton Head, I breathed a huge sigh of relief as we walked into the 3 bedroom condo we had rented for 4 days. I had been wracked with nervousness about whether things would be as I had planned, whether the condo would really be as nice as advertised, whether we would feel that we got a good value for our money, etc. Whew! The place was perfect for our little group, and we had a great time. We had a ocean views from every room, and Josh & I slept with our balcony door open almost every night. There's nothing more soothing than the ocean sounds. The Island was great, too. It had a great balance of beautiful surroundings plus proximity to things like restaurants, a Fresh Market, golf, and shops (although the girls did NOT go shopping, amazingly enough). Kate must have been soothed by the ocean sounds as well, because she slept really well -- even better than she does at home! Every morning we went out onto the beach for a bit, and we usually spent our afternoons at the pool. I made no attempts to get any sun, which is a huge change for me. Before we went out I was slathering myself with 30spf! Yet another sign of aging. Josh took care of Kate a lot for me, so I could relax by the pool or in the pool. :-) Lydia was a lot of fun to be around, and of course, she really loved hanging out with her cousin "the Kate." She knocked on the door almost every morning to ask if she could come in to our room. She couldn't get enough of Kate's toys and various "seats" as she calls them. One of her fav things to do is use Pup as a little baby, and place him in the bouncey seat or gym mat. Of course, she wasn't above playing with that little gym herself. She couldn't get enough of the musical fish. Another noticeable difference in this vacation was the total lack of game playing. Instead, we chose to read. . a lot! Yet another sign of parenthood.