Olivia 5 Months!

Princess, you're almost half a year old! I keep thinking back to this time last year when you were still a teeny tiny little thing in my tummy and only a handful of people knew you existed. I would imagine what my life would be like a year from then and try to picture life with you here. I didn't even know if you were a little boy or girl yet. But you're here now and it's so much better than I could have ever imagined! Life has new purpose and meaning and I've experienced a deep level of love and joy that I didn't know was possible. People always say you don't know how deep you can love until you have a child of your own, and there is really no way to prepare yourself for the truth of that. I love you so much it can sometimes make me physically ache!

You're getting so biggie! At your 4 month well visit you were almost 15 lbs and are finally measuring over the 50th percentile on growth charts. I've started to take you out of your carseat when running errands because it's just so heavy with you in it now! Plus, you prefer to be carried anyways. I am so grateful to your Aunt Sarah for lending me her Ergo! 

You give me this look (above) a lot. This is your serious face. You are super observant and prefer to spend your time looking around and taking in the world. You are curious and serious and I think (totally mommy-biased) that you're really intelligent. After a couple of different big events filled with lots of family and people time, I'm starting to think you may be an introvert. People seem to overwhelm and drain you quickly. It takes you a bit of time to recover from trips and family time. 

However, you do save a lot of giggles and smiles for mommy and daddy. You think it's hilarious whenever you're on your changing mat or when I put you on our bed and sing to you and lean over and "fall" on to your belly. You laugh and laugh and I do it over and over again until it wears me out. I usually sing a version of Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Dink-A-Dink, Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Doo, or Baa Baa Black Sheep to get you to smile and laugh. 

 

You're sitting up pretty well on your own now! I'm so proud of each milestone you achieve and am glad for you because you so want more independence. You will still randomly nose-dive after sitting up on your own for a while so I still sit near you while we practice sitting up, but you've got some impressive endurance and strength. 

You are sitting up in the bath now and you splash and splash and it's adorable. I love watching you learn new things and experience new things like playing in the tub! You also have discovered the bathwater duck thermometer and try to catch and eat it. 

Putting objects in your mouth is definitely a marker of this month. You've pretty much abandoned chewing on your hand in favor of picking up anything in sight and putting it in your mouth. Which makes sense because you are teething! In fact, you have a tooth! It popped up one afternoon! Teething is no fun, it's made you have some rough days and nights. You love to suck on the bottom of cold La Croix cans and have practiced sipping small amounts of water from a baby cup. You also really enjoy grabbing onto puckered lips and noses. Which is adorable, but can be dangerous because you have razor sharp nails that grow at an incredible rate. BUT, mommy is finally more confident when it comes to trimming your nails! Yay!

You are sleeping much better and mommy and daddy are SO, so, so, soooooo grateful! You wake up about once a night now around 1 am and then are up for the day between 5 and 6. We wake up and play for about an hour and a half and then you go down for a long nap (about 2 hours - again, thank you!) and mommy is able to get a nap in too! You're pretty cute when I go in to rescue you from your crib, you arch up and look at me and then smile and I LOVE it! You can move all over your crib now and it's always a surprise to discover which direction you're facing in the morning. You're going to be so happy when you can crawl. 

You still love the jumperoo and are using it to jump, jump, JUMP, more and more. You can spin yourself around in it now too. We've hung a bunch of baby links and teething toys from the top parts and you really enjoy that. 

Oh, baby girl. I love you so much and am so glad you're my baby! Each month is better than the last (especially now that we are sleeping a bit better!!) and I still wake up every day with excitement that this is my real life and you're here! Love, love, love, LOVE you Olivia Jane!!! 

Olivia Four Months!

Precious, precious girl. You are FOUR months old! I can't believe how fast the past four months have gone (I know I sound like a broken record saying that on each post). I feel like you've always been a part of our family and I have a hard time remembering life before you were here. 

It was a year ago this week that we found out you existed. It's amazing to see you so happy and healthy after the surgeons and doctors said chances of you surviving after mommy's surgery was slim.  You are a miracle and I thank God daily for you and for your health! You are strong and a survivor. 

You've made some big advancements this month. It's truly crazy how fast you change. People say that about babies all the time, but witnessing it is incredible. 

Right after you turned three months old you began to roll over from your back to belly. We were visiting Lolly and G-Daddy for a week in Milton and you actually rolled over for the first time when we were FaceTiming with your daddy! What a gift that he was able to witness that big first even though he was 300 miles away! 

You now prefer to roll onto your belly anytime you have the opportunity. You roll over and try your very hardest to propel yourself forward. Girl, you want to be on the move so very badly! You often fuss out of frustration because you can't move when you so obviously want to. The desire to always be on your belly made taking photos of you next to the Teddy that your Granny and Papa gave you very difficult... It's also made us be much quicker to steady you and we now have to hold on to you while doing things like changing your diaper. 

You've been waking yourself up multiple times a night by rolling yourself over onto your tummy. You're no longer swaddled, so we tried many different things to try and keep you sleeping on your back. We tried swaddling you but leaving your arms free, a sleep sack instead of a swaddle, and even rolling two swaddles up and kind of barricading you in in between them. Nothing worked very well. Thankfully, in the past few days you have just started to sleep on your belly from the get go and I'm hoping it will help you sleep more comfortably and for longer stretches. 

You're still waking up to nurse 2-3 times a night. I think if I was a little bit stronger in the middle of the night, and let you cry it out, we might make a breakthrough in how many times you wake up. To be honest though, I'm so tired in the middle of the night that I find it easier to zombie walk to your nursery and nurse you and then go back to sleep fifteen minutes later. 

Your bedtime is still around 7:30 after you have a bath and you are ready to wake up for the day around 6:00 AM.  In the morning we play for about an hour and a half and then you are ready to take a nap most days. I've been appreciating this recently as I've been able to get a few naps in myself while you're sleeping! However, as soon as we seem to figure out a schedule you throw mommy a curve ball and switch things up. I'm thinking you may be going through a growth spurt as you've been taking more frequent and longer naps lately. I'm looking forward to seeing your weight and length at your 4 month well visit next week!

Aunt Sarah brought us their jumperoo to let you borrow and you are a big fan. You enjoy being upright and it's great to be able to turn you a few degrees and all of a sudden you have something new to explore. You can also sit in the Bumbo for short periods of time, but you seem to prefer to topple yourself over in an attempt to eat your feet, so we've been taking a bit of a break from that. 

You are very interested in the world around you, spending much of your time studying whats going on and watching, watching, watching. You really enjoyed watching your cousins Karis and Evan play when we visited family for a week earlier in the month. I understand I am unabashedly biased, but I think you are super intelligent. You can look into your eyes and see the wheels turning. 

You've reached the stage of wanting to grab everything within reach and would like to stick everything in your mouth if we let you. Just in the past week you've become even more intentional with your grabbing and it's as though you have just discovered the dogs for the first time. The dogs are very patient with you, but I can speak from personal experience, that when you grab on and pull... it hurts! We are working on being gentle with them - not sure how much of that is sticking as you are only four months old haha. 

You've perfected two yoga moves this month... upward dog and happy baby. It's pretty cute watching you grab onto your feet. Another big achievement you met this month is laughing! Oh my gosh. There is NOTHING better than hearing you laugh. It shoots burst of joy through me that are hard to describe. I will repeatedly do foolish things over and over again if it makes you laugh. 

I think we have decided you must be a people person. You want to be with constantly. If you could be held 100% of the time you would be. You are always very aware of where people are in relation to you. You need to make sure that someone is with you and that you can see them at all times. It's great when we are with a big group like family and there are many hands to hold you and pass you around, but it is slightly exhausting when it is just mommy to entertain you all day long. You don't have much understanding for chores and bathroom breaks. 

You have definitely "found" your voice and talk talk talk all the time. Unfortunately for those around you, much of what you have to say sounds like a screeching eagle. I don't mind however. I hope you always know that I am here to listen to whatever you have to say, and even though it may seem trivial to others it will always be important to me. 

You celebrated your first Easter this month. Such a lucky girl as you received two Easter baskets! One from the bunny and one from your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jared! So sweet and so special. You also attended a church service for the first time and you did really well. I've been slightly anxious to take you because I didn't know how you would do, but you did really well. 

Girl, I think you inherited a love for all things food. You obviously haven't tasted anything but breastmilk, but you are super interested in food. You study it, are fascinated by people eating, and lunge forward to try and reach it whenever possible. I think it will be a very exciting day for you when you eat solids for the first time. 

I hope I'm not leaving anything big out. I'm fighting a bad cold and fever so am not in tip-top shape. It's been interesting trying to take care of you and keep you healthy when I am far from functioning at my best. Thankfully, it's the weekend and we have your daddy in our lives who takes such good care of us. He's been nursing me back to health and has been on full-time daddy duty, letting mommy sleep and get some much needed rest. Being a parent is so hard, and I have so much awe for those who do it on their own. I cannot imagine going through this journey without your daddy's help. I also am so incredibly thankful to have an older sister who has kids and has already been through everything. I call your Aunt Sarah daily - seriously, multiple times most days - to ask for advice. 

Little, precious Olivia, you are so dearly loved. You are a piece of my heart walking and beating outside my chest. I cherish you and am so glad that God made me your mommy. Happy four months baby girl!

Olivia 3 Months!

Well, princess, after three months I'd say we are definitely getting the swing of things around here. Life feels a little bit more predictable these days. However, just when I think we have things figured out, you change! You have changed so much and so quickly! 

You're such a little chunk now! Okay, you've never been a Michelin Tire baby, but for you, you are chunky! You have the cutest double chin and baby buddha belly! 

You're still going strong and are full of smiles! I think you're really close to laughing. You are an absolute hoot when you're being changed and just talk to us and give us the most heart-melting smiles! Some of the most adorable smiles are the ones you give your daddy. I honestly think he is your favorite person in the world. You give him almost bashful smiles... they're the smiles of a girl who knows she is absolutely adored and loved to the moon and back. 

One of my absolute favorite things is to get you up from your naps. You stare up at me and then when you realize you're being unswaddled you give the most adorable smile of joy! Nothing, however, is better than our morning cuddles. You wake up between 6-7am and I nurse you in the rocker in your nursery and we both end up falling back asleep. It's just the sweetest most precious time to me. I love waking up and seeing your cute sleeping face all snuggled up close to me in my arms. You stretch and sigh and then settle back into our cuddle. B.E.S.T. way to start the day! 

You're on the move as much as you can be in your 3 month old body. You kick, kick, kick and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle when you're getting changed, playing on your play gym, or are in your swing. You've started doing this sit-up, flinging motion and we've had to start strapping you into your swing. You've also discovered your feet this week and it's pretty amusing. You catch them with your eyes, then flop and fold almost completely over to try and reach them with your mouth.   

You're still not taking a paci but are a big, big fan of putting you hand in your mouth. Daddy and I are pretty impressed with your determination to get that hand in your mouth. We swaddle you so tightly that we are confident nothing can loosen it... but most of the time when we go to get you out of your crib your hand is out and your little baby fist is near your mouth.  I think you'll probably be a thumb-sucker. 

You can sit up pretty well with some assistance and can sit by yourself in the Bumbo. You've started to grab on to things - not so much with intentionality, but none the less - you grab things and hold on to them fiercely. It's pretty cute when you hold onto your own bottle at night, not so cute when you grab mommy's hair and almost pull it out with your surprising baby strength. 

You celebrated your first St. Patrick's Day. This is a big holiday in the city of your birth. We didn't venture out to the parade with daddy this year, but we celebrated at home with a custom made, monogrammed onesie. 

Your favorite books are Peek-a Who? and a nursery rhyme book your Granny gave you. You love the Itsy Bitsy Spider page in particular. We also spend a lot of our afternoons dancing around to Toddler Radio. 

You LOVE to be held and honestly are quite fussy if you're not in someone's arms or sitting in their lap. I love that you love to cuddle, but it isn't always possible. Whenever I put you in your swing or bouncy seat, you cry in angry protest. You definitely let me know when you are upset. You generally cry for 5-10 minutes before you settle down and accept that mommy can't hold you, but it absolutely breaks my heart to hear you cry! 

Love you, princess! I'm so thankful God made YOU our daughter! Happy 3 months! XOXO