Our Little Sunrise

Alba turned 4 months a week or so ago, and I thought I should take some time again and track her developments a little as well. It seemed that with Sophia I had nothing better to do than to blog endlessly about every little thing going on with her. And, well, I probably DIDN'T have anything better to do. Now it's a little trickier to find time for those things. But, our little Albi is the cutest, cuddliest little thing, and deserves some recognition. So, here we go.

Cuddly - she is indeed. At her 4-months check-up she beat Sophia in both weight and length I think, weighing in at 16lbs 2oz and 26 inches. I think Sophia weighed that much at 6 months. She's our little chubby chick, and we love it.

She still is overall pretty mellow and easy. She rarely cries, and recently we've noticed she gets sad when we just put her on her play mat or something, and she'll stop crying if she sits somewhere where she can see what we're doing (dinner table, or recently, I've had her on the kitchen counter a lot so she could watch me cook). She also enjoys reaching for things. Of course, all babies try to reach and grab stuff, but it's interesting to watch how much of a concerted effort she makes to really move her hand straight forward towards what she's trying to grab. If she's not grabbing stuff, she's probably working on standing or sitting up. She can't sit by herself yet (or stand, of course) but already seems to love to be on her feet (to the point where I can't get her into another position if I'm holding her), and she always is pulling herself up (like in her car seat, even though she's strapped in, she'll sit up as much as she can).

What she hasn't done yet though, is rolling over. She rolled once a month or so ago, and she likes to hold her feet, or try sucking her toes, and roll off to the side, but she hasn't actually rolled over. I wish she would because then I wouldn't feel bad about putting her to sleep on her belly. Sleeping on the belly is definitely her preference, but I'm too chicken to let her sleep like that at night. Then again, she falls asleep fine at night on her back. Maybe it doesn't matter. We've also stopped swaddling her, which she's always disliked, but I thought it'd help her sleep better. She's slept the same without swaddling...

Speaking of sleep. I'm going back and forth between declaring her or Sophia the better sleeper. We've had some great stretches of her sleeping 7-9 hours at night, and then not so good stretches again where she will feed once or twice at night (yeahyeah, I know 1-2 times at night may be heaven for some of you, but I'm spoiled, ok!). It seems that the not so good stretches are more often, but since it's not been much of an issue for me, I guess it doesn't matter. Also, I've noticed Alba loves to cuddle stuff. She always sleeps better when she can cling to something, whether it's a blanket or toy or whatever. She likes a pacifier to go to sleep and she's also gotten good at trying to grab it and putting it into her mouth when it falls out.

Lastly, Alba is still our smiley little sunshine. She loves to coo, and just smile at everyone she sees. She'll laugh (grunt) when she gets tickled. People frequently stop in the grocery store or other places to look at her, then she smiles at them and they melt and tell me how adorable she is. I think so, too. Of course though, I'm completely biased. Sophia loves Alba, too and often tries to help her if she's sad by giving her toys, singing her songs or giving her a kiss. When they're together they seem to love each other - Alba cooing, and Sophia hugging her, holding her, caring about her.