4 Months

My baby is four months old today. My eensy teensy tiny weeny itty bitty miniscule Bubbie. Clearly I was still under the impression that she was the smallest girl ever existing, so when we went to a Mom's group last week and all the babies were half her size or smaller, it was mouthing-droppingly shocking. The average age of the other babies was, like, three weeks. My enormous person laid hugely and chubbily grinning around, while the others weakly mewed kitten-like cries around the room, so young and small they could barely blink their eyes. One thing about my Bub, she never mewed weakly.

We officially have much better days now. The drooly chubby person that accompanies me everywhere loves to smile, bounce in her Jumperoo, stare at lights, cry if strangers look at her, and be held at all times. Every once in a while she lets her grandparents hold her without shrieking, but pretty much believes Mom and Dad are where it's at. Thank the HEAVENS that she likes her dad consistently now. He might even get more grins than me. Said grin-inducing papa has taken the occasional habit of relieving me of her from 7am to 8am since he is up anyway and I am about to die of exhaustion due to the unfortunate circumstance of being awake since 5:45, as well as every two hours since I laid my head down to begin with.

Which brings me to my next point: SHE IS WAKING UP EVERY TWO HOURS SINCE SHE LAID HER HEAD DOWN TO BEGIN WITH. I don't know what I ever did to her. I cuddle her, I suckle her. I carry her, I comfort her. I feed her, I bathe her. I dress her, I change her. Based on my track record one might really think she'd want to treat me right. Let's be clear: Right does not equal Waking Up 45,000 Times a Night. Or so.

In church on Sunday she had an uncharacteristic-of-late attack of the Screamies. She screamed and screamed until folks all around stared to make sure I wasn't snipping off her ear lobes with my pinking shears.

We went to the Mother's Room to nurse. She was calmed; we headed back to class. Once again we were overtaken by the Screamies and headed back to the Mother's Room. Rinse and repeat. Three times. When it became clear that our continued attendance in Sunday school was about as likely as Bubbie sleeping through the night, we just went and sat in the Mother's Room in defeat.

A friendly toddler finished nursing next to us. She sat up and stared at Annalise with interest. Annalise took note and stared right back. For 0.96 seconds before her brows furrowed, her lip jutted out, her face turned red and she SCREAMED. I moved her so she couldn't see the small child, so offensively trying to be social, and Annalise was instantly fine. The moral of the story is you never know who she's going to hate.

We are going to the doctor on Friday, so we will get her 4-month stats then. Nothing makes me happier that hearing how much weight she has gained and how much she's grown. Irrationally, I am still suffering PTSD from when she was a starving three-day-old before my milk came in, and can't help but see her as a lightweight that might be blown away by the next passing breeze, despite frequent comments to the contrary from friends and strangers alike regarding the sufficiency of her cheek chub quantity to feed small nations in Africa.