Our Annual Family Photo!

Jeff and I have a little tradition of going on a hike at the beginning of each October and taking our picture in the same place every year.  It's kind of neat to see how our family has changed.  I mentioned this tradition a couple years ago, but I guess I didn't post it last year.  So, here is our sequence:

2009

2010

2011

2012

Four months!

As of this past Saturday, Paisley is four months old!

We went for her four month pediatrician appointment a week early, and at 3 months and 21 days, Paisley weighed 11 lbs 8 oz (16^th percentile) and she is 25 inches long (85^th percentile).  We have a long, skinny little girl!  Her pediatrician asked me whether Paisley is getting enough to eat (she is—she eats whenever she wants all day long, and I pump extra every night), and the pediatrician asked about different milestones: Does she grab for things? (Oh, yes, she’s been doing that for a while.) Does she lift her head up when I lay her on her tummy? (Yeah, she’s been doing that for a while too.)  And so on.  So, since she is still gaining weight (not losing), and her length and head circumference are fine, and she’s still developing properly with milestones, the pediatrician said she’s not worried. 

Partway through this last month we sort-of moved in with Jeff’s parents.  We still spend most of our daytimes at our house, but we also spend a lot of time over at their house.  So, Paisley is getting to see a lot of her grandparents lately.  At first she cried for them (because they are not me), but within a couple days she warmed up, and now she’s very chummy with them.  She especially likes Jeff’s mom, but a couple weeks ago she chewed on Jeff’s dad’s finger, and he took that to mean that they’re friends now.

Pretty baby!

Paisley is teething.  She has been for at least a month.  I don’t know when she will actually get teeth—who knows, it could still be months away—but she drools all over, and she is constantly chewing on her fingers.  Or chewing on anything else she can get to her mouth.  Jeff got his first tooth when he was 4 months old.  I got my first tooth several months later.  There have been a few times when it is really obvious that she is hurting, but mostly she’s just a drool and chomping machine.  We still have her wearing her Baltic amber necklace to help with teething.  If I had to guess, I’d say it makes things about 15-20% better.  But I don’t know.

When I noticed that Paisley really enjoys chewing on the toys at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, I felt like a little bit of a bad mom for not getting her any toys.  Whoops!  Even though I am Jeff’s Realtor now, we are still friends with our awesome Realtor who helped Jeff buy our house and our fourplex, and she gave Paisley a little bunny soft security blanket thing with a rattle and knots on the corners.  Now that Paisley is teething, she really loves the bunny.  (We take it everywhere.)  But, that’s the only toy she had!  So I ordered a few toys on Amazon and now she has another favorite: two wooden triangles.  Best. Toy. Ever.  It rattles, and it is colorful, and it is just perfect for grabbing and for putting in her mouth.  We also bought a couple other wooden toys by the same company, but Paisley is crazy about the triangles, so when we go places we take the bunny and the triangles.

Halfway through the month we went for Paisley’s first swim class.  It’s a parent/tot class at a pool up in Holladay.  Paisley liked it!  The class had 6 parents and 6 tots, all younger than 2 years old, so I wondered how much they could possibly do.  They did a lot, actually.  The idea is that really little kids can learn to float if they fall in pools or water, and they can just kind of hang out and call for help instead of drowning.  Kids that are a little bigger learn to swim, float, swim.  So they paddle towards the edge, and then when they get tired they relax and float on their backs until they feel ready to swim some more, and the pattern repeats until they get to the edge and climb out!  The videos make me cry, and I don’t really know why.  My youngest brother almost drowned, actually, when he was a baby.  It was pretty intense.  We pulled him out of the bottom of the spa, and I did CPR? (Or something?) while my sister called 911.  My parents weren’t home when it happened.  My mom came home to all of the emergency vehicles at our house.  My brother started breathing again pretty quickly (I think?), but they still life-flighted him in a helicopter to a children’s hospital.  Miraculously, my brother had no brain damage or anything, and he is totally fine.  I rarely even think of that story, but maybe it is part of the reason infant self-rescue classes appeal to me?  Not sure.

Paisley meeting her grandpa (Em's dad).

So, anyhow, about the swim class—it is only a 25 minute class.  Everyone sings a lot.  When we first got there they were singing “The kids in the pool…” to the tune of “The wheels on the bus.”  And there are different motions—the kids in the pool go side to side, in and out, and up and (!) down.  We also sang “Row, row, row your boat” while the babies floated.  There were a bunch of group activities that we did in a circle, a little bit of individual play-time while the instructor spent a couple minutes with each baby individually, and then there were more group activities at the end, too.  It was very cool.  Paisley went under water three times, and only got a little upset once, although she didn’t actually cry at all.  One little boy was sad for most of the class, but everyone else did just fine.  At 3.5 months, Paisley was the youngest participant, but there were a few babies that were 6 months old.  Lately I’ve been too busy to commit to a weekly class, but I plan for us to start going to a weekly class soon.  I ordered another (reusable) swim diaper in the tiniest size, plus an infant wetsuit.  That was the only problem, I think; Paisley did seem a little cold partway through.  So, I think that will make it even better next time.  (If anyone is curious, you can see some videos of babies swimming on the website HERE.)

This month I also started signing to her.  I think it’s still wayyy too early for her to sign back, so it’s kind of a half-hearted effort, but we do “bye-bye” (or “zài jiàn,” as the case may be!), and I often sign “milk” when I nurse her. Paisley’s Chinese babysitter still comes twice a week, and although I am usually home for her visits, it gives me a perfect opportunity to actually get some things done!)  Last week her babysitter crocheted a red hat for her (“Red because it is lucky.  Chinese believe red brings luck in all things.”) and this week she crocheted a headband with a flower on it for Paisley.  I think that is just so sweet when she makes stuff for Paisley. 

Paisley meeting her great-grandpa (Em's mom's dad).

My little sister Sarah got married this past weekend, on the day that Paisley turned four months old.  So, my family came to town for the wedding, and Paisley finally got to meet my dad, my sisters, and her cousin that is a month older than she is.  I sewed cute little matching baby dresses for Paisley and her cousin “Ally” (Allyn).  Paisley also met her great-grandpa (my mom’s dad) at the wedding, plus some of my aunts and uncles. 

Quick family picture at the wedding.

Paisley with Ally - during their month photos.

It was pretty funny having Ally at our house for a couple days.  Since Ally is exactly a month older than Paisley we did their month photos together.  Ally weighed 16 lbs when she was four months old, and now they think she weighs about 18 lbs—almost double Paisley’s weight.  Ally is a really relaxed little girl; Paisley is either grinning or screaming most of the time, but Ally just kind of hangs out; she doesn’t seem to have such strong emotions.  When we were doing photos, though, Ally kept grabbing the bow out of Paisley’s hair, or grabbing Paisley, etc.  Paisley tolerated the attention pretty well.

I think that’s about it!  I’ll finish this post with a video from this past Sunday.  Paisley had been fussy all afternoon and evening.  She cried the whole way home from Jess & Mitch’s house that night.  Then I changed her into jammies and we discovered this fun game.  Adorable!  The game isn’t as funny anymore, but it sure was that night!  So, I had my dad make a video.

Three months!

Life is very, very busy right now, and Paisley is actually almost four months old, but I still wanted to write about three months anyway.  Here is a list of notes that I made a couple weeks ago:

Paisley likes to reach for things!  She is especially interested in my food and my phone.  No matter how far away I sit from the table, it seems like she is always able to grab for my plate.  She also loves grabbing at my phone when I am texting or using the Internet.  And, of course my phone has a touch screen so sometimes she sends things before I mean to, or closes things, etc.  It's kind of obnoxious. 

Paisley smiles a lot.  She also talks a lot.  We enjoy both.

Paisley has laughed a few times now (while awake).  There was one night where it was 1 am, and I had already put her to bed a few times, and I was needing to get up early the next morning, so I was kind of frustrated about being up with her again.  I took Paisley into her room and put her on her changing table, and as I was doing whatever I was doing (changing her? dressing her?  swaddling? I forget) she thought something was so funny.  She laughed and laughed for like 5 minutes, and it sounded like angels dancing, or the most wonderful noise there is.  It was the best.  (Now when she laughs it doesn't sound quite as beautiful and bubbly as that first time when she was just discovering laughing, but we still love it.)  

I am Paisley's favorite person, and she is very open about that fact.  I'm her first favorite, and second favorite, and third favorite, and fourth favorite, and fifth favorite... Jeff is probably her tenth favorite, and the babysitter is her eleventh favorite. 

Paisley likes to be held all the time.  I hold her most of the day every day, lately we've been using our ring sling a lot.

I found out about Souns, and we're looking forward to using them with Paisley!  (The age to start them is 5 months, so we'll probably order them in a month or so.)  I'm sure I will probably blog about this separately sometime in the future, but basically, Souns are 4" lowercase alphabet letters which are introduced to babies and toddlers one at a time and called by the sound that they make instead of the name of the letter.  So, effectively, young children learn to read and "write" before they are coordinated enough to use a pen or pencil.  It's really exciting, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  So, we're definitely planning to do it.  I'm happy that I discovered them when I did, because it seems like they are relatively new and not very widely used yet, and we will be able to use them at the perfect time.  That's great!

Paisley had been sleeping 10-11 hours straight every night until recently.  Just lately she has started sleeping poorly--she wakes up every few hours, and lately I have to put her to sleep 3-4 times every night.

Paisley does not like car rides much anymore. 

Paisley likes a little game that I read about in the Wonder Weeks book: I sit on the couch with my feet up on something in front of me, to make an incline facing me.  Then, I lay Paisley on my lap, facing me.  I hold her hands and pull her up into a sitting position.  Last month Paisley didn't care for this, so we didn't do it much, but now she likes it a lot.

We're still doing pretty well with EC.  It used to be that I would take her to the bathroom a lot and she would only go once in a while.  Now I don't take her very often, but she usually goes when I do take her.

We love this little girl so much!  She is such a sweet baby, and it's fun to see her growing into our own little person.