Four months later......

Hannah is now four months old. We had her four month well-baby check-up today. She is doing just fine. Her weight is up to 15 pounds 12 or so ounces. According to the nurse, she's 24 inches long, but I don't believe that number. She was 24 inches long in October, so I will probably measure her at some point in time this week and go with that number. We talked her napping schedule (short naps are okay), solids (we could start now, but that tongue thrust reflex is still hanging around so we're gonna wait), bottle size and nipple flow (follow her cues), and walking/crawling (start thinking about baby-proofing, but we should have some more time). She got two shots and handled them like a trooper.

Hannah rolled from back to front yesterday morning on the bed. She loves to sit up and is getting better and better at doing it without support. She also loves to stand and can do so just holding onto your hands. Over the last few weeks, she has done more smiling and has become quite the conversationalist. She almost always has a smile for whoever gets her out of bed in the morning, so I often try to do it if I can before I go to work. Matt still sends me pictures of her smiling face during the day, but it's awesome to see it myself.

Hannah went to her first birthday party at the beginning of December. Violet turned one so we celebrated with Sara's family as well as Carolyn's. She wore the cutest party dress and I love this picture!!

Hannah normally takes short naps throughout the day, but every once in awhile, she gets in a good long nap... usually while napping on someone. Daddy likes long naps too.

Hannah is also starting to play with her toys by herself. She's doing more reaching and is better able to sit in her chair by herself so that we can get stuff done. I managed to make an entire meal while she played the other day. It was awesome.

Christmas is coming! We've picked up the gifts, and even though Matt thinks it's silly, I will be wrapping them. Yes, it's less about her and more about us this year, but I don't care. I want the pictures of her first Christmas. The tree is up and decorated.

We're working on wrapping gifts, but some have already arrived from various family members, most of them wrapped so there are also wrapped gifts under the tree now. We spent a chunk of time taking pictures last night to use for our Christmas card and in the end, we are doing a kind of complication card with pictures that go all the way back to our maternity photo shoot with the most recent being the picture from the doctor's office today. I did get some very cute pictures in her first Christmas outfit.

In related baby news, pumping is going well. So well, in fact, that we ran out of room in the chest freezer. So I made the decision to donate my milk. I found a family in Madison who adopted a little guy about a month before Hannah was born. We met up with the mom on Sunday and gave her around 1,000 ounces of milk. It's a bizarre feeling to know that someone else's baby is going to be getting nourishment from my milk, but at the same time, it's just amazing to know I am helping someone so intimately. It's just awesome. What's really scary is that even though I gave her that much milk, there is still half a chest freezer full downstairs. So it's only a matter of time before I will run out of space again. The doctor was pretty impressed when I told her about it.

As mentioned above Christmas is coming, so I'm planning to post pics of Hannah with her presents.

Along a sadder vein, I feel the need to acknowledge the shootings in Newtown, CT that occurred last week. I was deeply saddened by the events both as a teacher and as a parent. It's devastating to think something like that could happen in my school to my students, and worse yet to worry that it could happen to my little girl. It's enough to make you want to homeschool!