Ella turned four months on Christmas Eve. At her checkup the week before, she measured 26″ (>97th percentile) and 15 lbs, 15 ozs (~90th percentile). We don’t make small babies/kids in the Galloping Cats household, that’s for sure.
She is the drooliest thing you’ve ever seen. Her grandfather said something about general dampness, so that is what I call her now: General Dampness. Gatito says she is only a one-star general, though. She pukes, too, a few times/day. Nothing concerning, but it is gross and smelly and between that and the drool, we go through roughly ten bibs/day.
She is absolutely dying to sit up. If I lie her on her back or in the bouncy seat, she’s basically doing crunches– head and shoulders off the ground, legs in the air– to try to sit. So she spends a fair amount of time in the Bumbo instead. She is so cheerful, I can hardly believe it. Smiles for strangers all the time, which is so unfamiliar to us after Gatito. I was walking her to sleep the other day when I stopped in front of a mirror to see if her eyes had closed. She was half asleep by then, but she smiled at the reflection. And at the grocery store, wearing her in the Ergo, half asleep, she still spared a smile for the employee who was trying to help me find something.
Yesterday, I made her laugh hysterically by standing in front of the mirror, puffing out my cheeks, and then squeezing the air out with a funny noise. She joined in with similar noises and great belly laughs. If there is any better sound than a baby laughing, I’ve never heard it.
We’ve been having this crazy series of things lately, culminating with A spending the night of Christmas Eve in agony with an ear infection, then half of Christmas Day in the hospital getting it treated, since there was no place else to go. But I don’t kid myself: Overall, our problems are so minor. We live a charmed life and I am grateful for it every day.
I woke up thinking about your kids and their different temperments…sorry if that is too weird.
A friend of mine, who used to write the blog “mothering down the bones” first child is much like Gaitito, and when she was pregnant with her second she kept wishing for one who was more easy going, like her husband. She got her ‘wish’, and then proceeded to worry that perhaps there was something wrong with him because he was so easy to soothe and so happy! It was hysterical. She also said she was really grateful to have had the first one be so persnickity. If she’d had the ‘easy’ one first she would have thought she was some sort of wonder mother, and by having the ‘hard’ one first, she was clearer that is was about the kid, they just come out hardwired to be who they are. 4 months! What a miracle! You were doign your cycle this time last year!
Gatito was actually a very easy baby to take care of. He just wasn’t that into strangers (or extended family members)! The real difference is that people always commented on how serious he was– and they still do– whereas Ella smiles so easily that people mainly remark on how happy she is.
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And yes, definitely a miracle, and I never stop being grateful. I forgot to mark the anniversary of the transfer: December 13.
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She sounds like a delight!
She really is!
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Nothing better in this world than a smiley baby!
It’s so cute that Gatito calls her a one star general. How on earth did he come up with that?