4 months old - phhhhhhrrrrttttttttttttttttthhh!

lest anyone question who this child really looks like, behold:

glenda and dan shall be named the patron saints of babysitting. this distinguished honor is bestowed upon them for babysitting hana, jack riley, charlotte (party of 5!) AND cole, enabling their respective parents to go to the movies and see "blades of glory" . this momentous occaision not only marks glenda and dan's cannonization, but it also marks our first baby-free movie in a theater since hana was born. (as you recall, we took her to see three movies when she was a more sleepy baby, during the oscar season.) it was a nice break. btw, blades of glory was FREAKIN" AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so so good.

anywho, our little one seems to have grown quite a bit in the last week. she wore 6-12 month pants today which fit her just fine, even though last week when she wore them, they needed to be rolled up at the hem about an inch or so. we've been doing some bottle feedings at bedtime lately and she has been sucking down 12 ounces of breastmilk like it was nothin'!!! everyone says she's ready for cereal but i'm conflicted about it. "they" (meaning several different books i've consulted on the subject) say that babies don't need anything but breastmilk or formula until they're 6 months old. "they" also say that you shouldn't start them on solids until they are at least 4 months old. "they" go on to say that any solid food given at this point is really only ceremonial, since it's supposed to supplement breastmilk or formula, not the other way around. so basically i'm supposed to nurse her first and then give the rice cereal. "they" also mention that the longer you wait to introduce solids the better off they are with food allergies, particularly if one parent has some food allergies. given that jon is allergic to some tree nuts, shellfish and chocolate, we both feel like the longer we can hold out, the better we will be protecting her. one of the "they"s even go so far as to say not to introduce any of these things until after baby's 3rd birthday. that seems like it will be awfully hard to do... our next pediatrician appointment is not for a couple of weeks and i definately plan to talk about it with him (especially since the at the last appointment, they also said we feed exclusively breast milk for six months).

but she is eating A LOT. we started giving her bottles at bedtime because she was taking like 2 hours(!) to go down at night, mostly because everytime we'd think she was done nursing, she's let us know within a couple of minutes, she most certainly was not! once we realized that she could easily put away a pint faster than a frat boy on saint patrick's day, it became clear that she it was simply taking her 2 hours to get ALL the milk she needed to sleep through the night.

the bottles seem to help, but frankly, she's very good at getting what she needs through direct nursing and pumping is WAY less efficient. if i pump once a day, it takes me 2 days to get an 8 ounce feeding so it's tricky (actually, nearly impossible) to keep up with the nightly demand that way. if i hazard a guess, i estimate that she eats anywhere from 8-10 oz per feeding, with her big whopper 12 oz feeding at bed time. she does about 6 feedings a day. we could probably do a combination of boob and bottle, but we have also supplemented with formula too which allows jon to take over the whole bedtime ritual using the bottle with breastmilk and formula to get through the whole feeding.

i pressume a meal involving cereal will leave her feeling more satisfied, but at what price? if i can remember at a decent time of day, i will consult with the pediatrician by phone, before the appointment. i won't change anything before i consult though...

in other news, our little proud mary continues her rollin'... on thursday, i put her down on her back to play while i went into the kitchen and when i came back a few minutes later, she was on her belly, laughing and talking to herself. so she rolled from back to stomach although i have not actually witnessed it. she also doesn't roll from tummy to back as often as i thought she would. she apparantly decided that she is nobody's circus pony and she'll roll only when there's a need to and for no other reason thank you very much.

on tuesday of this week, she also started "blowing raspberries" - pppphhhrttth! - and she seems to really enjoy that. she does it most of her waking moments and sometimes even when she's fussy... as if to say "phooey!". i can usually get her to turn a sour mood around by blowing raspberries at her and she will answer back in-kind. i personally think it's pretty darn cute - probably because at this point there's no food involved. i imagine i will find it less endearing when she's "blowing squash".