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.