Four months!

I am posting this a little late because my mom and brother were in town for the last week while husband was away at a conference.  Man, I am SO GRATEFUL that they came, their help was absolutely amazing!!!!  It was a whirlwind of baby wrangling, adventurous cooking, and attempting to adult (i.e., do the one million annoying little home maintenance projects that have been languishing but were desperately needed).  We only got about half of them done...but I suppose that half is way better than where we were before!  One of our chores was to get Maya's room/bed situation worked out to officially move Annika in with her.  I will post more about this, with cute photos, once the finishing touches are complete (although there's a teaser photo in today's post below).

Annika had her four month well baby check on Monday, and she continues to grow (nearly) exponentially - 17lbs 12oz and 26.25 inches!  I keep asking the pediatrician if I should change how much I'm feeding her (although I really have no good sense for how much she eats, except to infer that she's probably eating more than I think she is).  He keeps telling me no, she's proportional, which isn't quite true.  Yes, she's long, but weight-for-length percentile is still like 75th+.  She's a tank, that's for sure!  She handled her shots beautifully again as well.

At four months, Annika has oodles of personality.  She's gotten even more vocal over that last week or so, and she spends much of her waking hours "talking."  She's a very drooly baby, so everything is always coated with a layer of her spit (Maya doesn't much like that aspect of her sister).  When well rested, she's an absolute joy to spend time with, although she does have an instantaneous transition switch into ear-piercing scream mode (at the same remarkable pitch as her sister) that is truly a sight to behold when she's not getting something that she wants.  She's getting very, very close to rolling as well.  Sitting, especially in the high chair to join us for dinner, is definitely still a work in progress.  Annika has discovered her toes, so she spends a lot of time in the "happy baby" yoga pose, and she's pretty spot on with reaching.  The most fun game that we play is to have Maya bounce up and down in front of her, which elicits waves and waves of giggles.  We are signing with her as often as possible, and I think she's starting to understand the sign for milk and the sign for bath, although both events are heavily ritualized so it's a bit difficult to confidently assess exactly what she's responding to.

Things Annika loves:

- Maya

- Nursing

- Splashing in the bath

- Chewing on her hands

- Afternoon walks in good weather

Things Annika hates:

- Poopy diapers

- Wet clothes

- Being tired

- Mama not available 24/7

- Miscommunication

The daycare transition marches on, and although she is indeed four months old now, I'm still super afraid of SIDS.  Maybe at 6 months I'll finally calm down....  Anyway, we bump up to four mornings a week in July, so progress is being made!  She's reliably taking ~4oz from a bottle each morning (although she won't latch onto the nipple, they have to squirt it in), and that's "good enough" for my standards!

Upcoming events to look forward to: husband, Annika, and I are heading to a conference in Texas this coming month while Maya visits her other grandma - wish us luck!

I'm such a happy baby when I've napped!

This is the look she gives me in her carseat, which is pretty unmistakable as
"Mom, something is terribly wrong (e.g., me being in this carseat),
and you aren't doing a thing to fix it.  WHY."

This is the face I get to wake up to :)

Annika and grandma :)

Part of the new decals in the girls' room, featuring Annika's spirit animal (fox)