4 months and counting...

On April 17th, 2006 Malka Velma Angel (Malka-Palka-Pooka-Palka or Giggle Girl) turned 4 months old.

It REALLY does go by SO amazingly fast and slow at the same time. I wish for her to be walking and talking already, yet at the same time, to remain so sweet and (relatively) small.

She has her April Well-baby appt. next week, but we are guestimating about 19 pounds and 26 inches. I'll let you know if we win any betting pools on that one.

So far, she's not too interested in rolling over, but is so enamoured with our encouragement that she really does give it the old college try - she's not aware, however, that she has to tuck her arm under herself in order to do so, so she just kind of swims in place and sometimes can make a full clockwise circle when on her tummy. She's OK with tummy time, and is thrilled when she's pushing herself up, and annoyed when her muscles fatigue and she has to lie down. She also LOVES standing up with our help - she'll keep bouncing up, all gummy grins until you can actually feel her little leg muscles quiver, whereby she just sits down on you. Yesterday, we went to the playground and she went on the baby swing for the first time, and LOVED LOVED LOVED it! Giggles and gummy grins for all to see for miles around. She was looking at the big kids playing with SUCH interest, that I told her that she'd be a big girl soon and running around with them, too.

Outside of the rolling over thing, she's pretty much on track with all of the things 4 month olds are supposed to be doing. Her interactions are increasing, she LOVES the mirror, and the silly songs we sing to her in it - her FAVORITE game is "bounce da baby" - I'll wear her in the "bijornin-nornin" (the baby bjorn, but we call it the bijornin-nornin) and go into our bedroom, and in front of the big mirror, we'll do a song called "bounce da baby, bounce, bounce da baby baby (repeat) then pause for a beat and then "ga doog-a-doog-a." With this silly song is slight bouncing on my part, so that she is slightly jiggling, and in the pause, I lean over and stop. So does she - on the "ga doog-a-doog-a," I shake slightly back and forth - this elicits giggles and grins for DAYS - it's a sure-fire way to cheer a cranky Malka, and to just have a bit of fun. I'll try to catch it on video sometime, as my description doesn't give it justice, but she LOVES it, and it's some fun Malka-and-Eemah time.

When reading the "your baby week by week," we are mostly relieved, but also aware that babies advance and develop when THEY want to - for some things, like her interactions and push-ups on tummy time, she's advanced. For others, like rolling over, she's behind. But we aren't too worried - as long as she eventually does it, it's OK to skip around in the development steps, as long as you touch them all at some point.

She clearly recognizes us as her parents, but is also really great with other people. She LOVES being outside in her stroller, and it's GREAT exercise for me to go on our almost daily 3 hour long walks. She loves going to Shul (Synagogue), and was such a trouper at the two Seders we went to - everyone commented on what a great baby she is. She only really screams if she's over-tired or over-hungry, or has bad gas, and we obviously try to prevent those situations when we can.

On our adventure yesterday, we went to the bookstore with the ampersand in the title, and picked up both the Ferber and the Weisbluth books. Malka will sleep basically from 7:00 or 8:00pm until about 1:00ish am, with slight wake-ups in between where I run in and replace the pacy, or make sure the white nose is loud enough. After 1am, she's up about every hour or so until a feeding and diaper change at 4:00ish am, and then is back down until 6:30 or 7:00am, when she's up for the day. I'm not sure how or when we will sleep train her, but I DO know we have to transition her into her own room VERY soon - in an ideal world, this will all happen before I go back to work on the 15th of May.

I know that in theory, she IS "sleeping through the night" with her 5 or 6 hour stretch. Which rocks. It's just that if she's falling asleep at 7 or 8pm and waking up at 1am, well - that just sucks for us, doens't it... So we know that since she's at the "4 month mark" that some form of sleep training can begin to take place. Now we just have to figure out what kind and when.

She had a lovely moment with Cougar a few days ago, as whenever she's on my lap, Cougie gets jealous, because, well, it was his lap first! So he tries to share, which works sometimes and does not work at other times. So he was trying to figure out how to snuggle on my lap with "the thing" on it already, when the "thing" reaches out and pets him - not once, but 3 times, and VERY gentle like, too! We were thrilled. I hope it wasn't a fluke, as it looked deliberate.

Juno, by the by, is on the mend. She's back to asking me for breakfast and bossing the boys around, which she took a break from for a few days after her surgery. I'm glad the old girl's back to her usual self.