3.5 Months

Goodness gracious, where does the time go? I can't believe my little baby is already 3 and a half months old, and I certainly can't believe that my maternity leave is ending soon (4 months sounds like such a long time!). Raley has grown and changed so much. At her last check-up (last week) she was 11 lbs, 12 oz and 24 inches, which puts her right on the 50th percentile for both. A totally average baby.

Well, of course we think she's above average! She's making great strides in thinking and communicating. You can actually watch her think - it's pretty funny. She "recognizes" the camera, but just wants to study it every time it's pointed at her face. So she stops whatever adorable thing she was previously doing, stares at the camera, and we wind up with a lot of very serious, studying photos. Very cute, but only partially representational of her personality. However, I did manage to catch a whole series like this:

You're so funny, Mommy!

Using my secret weapon, the raspberry. That's right, I blow raspberries at my daughter and she laughs and laughs! The funny thing is that she has just started doing them, too, so now we can go back and forth.

She loves to check out new objects when you show them to her (or hang them over her head). She gets very serious and just stares. Then she does the same thing every time. I think her mental dialog goes something like this:

"Wow. That's interesting. Let me look at that. Huh. Looks strange. I wonder what it tastes like. Let's see if I can taste it with my tongue. *sticks out tongue* Nope, tongue is still too short.
(Note: Raley would be much happier if she was a chameleon or giraffe... or when she figures out that she can use her hands to bring things to her tongue. Until then, frustration).
I know, I'll talk to it. Maybe I can convince it to come closer. "Coo. Ooo. Goo! AH! AHAHAH! OOO!" Huh. Didn't work.
OK, how about if I just lean forward - maybe I can reach it...

Leeeeeaaaaaannnnn...

Nope, not far enough. Need to work on those abs. Well, I guess I'll just look at it some more.
Hmm... wonder what it tastes like."

I think she might be the first baby to learn to sit up entirely through her abs... she shows no interest in using her arms at all to push up, but focuses entirely on that crunch. That pose is also her "pick me up" pose - if she's lying on her back or sitting in bouncy seat and you stand over her, she'll start doing that to say "OK, pick me up now!" Also, as soon as we put her in her car seat she starts it... not the biggest fan of the car seat, still, although she doesn't mind it so much once we get out of the house and on the road.

Speaking of not using her arms, the same thing goes for tummy time. She's not the biggest fan of tummy time... in fact, we call it a "ticket to tantrum town." She will raise her head, but she's not using her arms to push up... it's all in the abs/back. In fact, many times she'll raise up one or both arms too:

Superbaby!

Maybe a future Yoga or Pilates instructor? I think she'll be pretty good at bow pose!

She's also gotten really good at holding her head up... So good that she pretty much hates to be in any other pose than "sitting up" (with a lot of support, obviously). One of the baby websites called babies her age "pre-sitters" which I just love. We like to ask her how the "pre-sitting" is going. In fact, she's pre-sitting on my lap at the moment helping me type this entry! Here she is with grandma:

Watch me pre-sit!

She has beautiful long, curly eyelashes. We were worried at first because when she was born she had literally 4 lashes and they were short and spiky. But they've really grown in and they're lovely. Of course, they're reddish blond so they don't show up real well in photos, but here's the best I could do:

Don't make me bat my eyelashes at you!

And finally the sleeping. She sleeps through the night now, just about every night. We put her down to sleep around 10 PM (she actually naps/sleeps from 7-10 usually but takes another bottle around 10) and then she's out until 6 or 7 in the morning. If we don't set an alarm clock, she tends to sleep later and then Daddy is late for work! She's pretty good about going down for sleep these days, too - like she knows that she needs a nap. But I realized last night that she's a lot like Homer Simpson in the trucker episode, where he takes a handful of pep pills to stay awake and then (realizing he's taken too many) a handful of sleep pills to "even it out." Then he's driving going, "I'm soo sleepy can't keep my eyes open. I'm awake! I'm awake! I'm so awake I'm... Sleepy, sooo sleepy..." If you've seen the episode (Season 10, Episode 17) you'll know what I mean. But sleep always wins out eventually.

So that's our life here. There has even been some craftiness here and there, but not too much...

Um, and in other life-changing news, I took a new job (same government, same program, different office). It's actually been in the works for a while, but just became official a few weeks ago. In September we'll be moving to Long Beach, California. So we're trying to get the house ready to sell. Stress much? If you know of anyone who's moving to Maryland, please let me know!

Hope you're doing well!