Four Months - Bevin Jean

Bevin is 18 weeks old. As of today's visit, she weighs 12 and a half pounds, is 24 imches and her head circumference is 15 inches. She's currently outgrowing her 0-3 month clothes and fitting into her 3-6 month clothes. Her legs are long and her big cloth diapers make her butt chunky so she fits well into the 3-6 month pants. The onesies are still a bit on the big side. The best part about the warmer weather is we can finally wear some short sleeve onesies and ditch the socks. Love me some little baby toesies!

Her blue eyes are still blue. I checked my blog archives (via my blog book) from Cole's first year and his eyes had changed to brown (he was born with a darker blue than hers) when he was 3 months old, so time will tell the fate of her baby blues.

So many clothes...
Thanks to our daycare teacher, Anna, and our friends, Shane and Jana, we have little girl clothes up to about 12 months. We are so fortunate to know such generous people. I was able to give more of Cole's clothes away to another friend who had a baby boy this month. As Bevin outgrows her clothes, we've been giving them to a neighbor who had a premie daughter in late March. It's really kind of awesome to pass what was given to us to someone else who could use them.

Diaper duty...
Cloth diapering has been going really well. We invested in some doublers, made our own fleece liners and we're pretty set. It can get pretty yuck sometimes, like when she has the inevitable blowout diaper. But as she grows, her digestive system does too, so those blowouts don't happen as often as they used to. We launder the pre-folds and some covers every other day and we keep the dirty pre-folds in a dry pail with some borax to contain the odor.

Sleep...
It's funny how with the second child people stop asking so much about how she's sleeping. Maybe because we know not to complain like we used to with Cole. And we're not so upset about our lack of sleep, because we know that eventually she'll sleep through the night. We also know we're lucky that she has long stretches of sleep at night, but there's no way in hell we want to jinx that so we don't readily share that information. The long stretches could be anywhere from 3-5 hours, but the average is usually 4. I knew that when Cole was her age, I would've given my left arm for four straight hours of sleep, so I try not to complain. She naps around 3-4 times a day and her naps run from 1-3 hours long. All of her naps take place in a carrier (i.e. the Ergo, Boba, or a wrap). Since I developed a nightly routine and finally came to an understanding of the rhythm of her sleep, we have a good handle on when she needs to go down (generally an hour and a half after she wakes up), and that has made a huge difference in our sanity.

Bevin's personality...
She's just as curious as she was before. When given the chance, she can grab things and put them in her mouth. She's frequently grabbing my plate when she sits in my lap during dinner time and she even got a hold of a piece of rice recently. Fortunately, she pushed it back out of her mouth, as if to say "not yet Mommy, geez!" However, more and more she's pulling my plate towards her, and trying to take my food. Probably time to get some better toys for the dinner table!

She's going through the mental leap (as per Wonder Weeks) where she becomes much more aware of things going on around her. This means she's more fussy lately. But she's also super talkative and making a lot of new sounds. (The most recent one sounds like "Loooooo Aaaah." She's all smiles when she's not tired and doesn't mind looking around in between feedings.

Bevin's likes/dislikes...
Bevin still dislikes being put down. She lets it be known when she is unhappy in whatever baby seat we just placed her in (rock n play, bouncer, swing, etc). This is why we babywear. We also find ourselves walking around the house just holding her. I'd have to say that she is the most content being held, and that could be because she's facing out and seeing everything we do, but still cradled safely in our arms.

She dislikes being in the car when she's tired. If we go on a ride just after she's napped or if she wakes up in the car after a nap, she does not scream.  She plays with the rattle or stuffed toy hanging from the bucket handle. But if it's right around nap time, she's hysterical. It's rattling to all of us. Sometimes she falls asleep after the screaming, but sometimes not. It's pretty hard not to get upset about it. Thankfully, I discovered early on that singing (no matter how bad my voice is) really soothes her. I currently have the words to "Hush little baby" and "You are my sunshine" memorized. I just sing them over and over and over until she falls asleep. Sometimes Cole joins in and sometimes Keith does too. In the house, when Keith is wearing her down, he just makes words up as he goes along, which can be even more entertaining than my off-key singing, if you ask me.

Bevin likes to nurse. She starts to giggle when she sees my breast and gets an excited look in her eyes. In the wee hours of the morning, she nurses on and off for several hours.

Bevin loves watching her big brother. Just as I'm worrying he's going to make her cry because he's squeezing or getting in her face too much, a huge smile spreads across her face. He can make her smile and laugh just by looking at her.  She is so enamored with him and he with her. It is just amazing to watch their relationship blossom. Just this week, I put her down on his old play mat and he jumped at the chance to be close to her. He's getting really excited that she's getting close to crawling age. The best part about their relationship is that no matter how jealous he gets (which is never too much) he never takes it out on her. And of course since her world is Cole Cole Cole, she's never known life without him. That makes him the cats meow.

She also enjoys petting Kiwi, touching her Daddy's beard, sucking on her thumb, and, of course, being held by Mama. 

She's also currently finding her voice. She has high pitched noises and some gibberish with various vowels and consonants, but she also recently discovered that she can growl. Contrast her high pitched voice with her growl, and it is pretty damn funny.

Our first evening just hanging outside. I love summer.

This little girl even has Gramma babywearing. 

Sibling love.

They both get such a kick out of each other.

Hi Daddy!