4 Months

Today my sweet Mara Soleil turned 4 months old.  It seems like it was much longer ago that I was in the hospital, fighting my way through 23 hours of labor, pushing out an almost-9-pound baby, struggling to learn to breastfeed and trying to figure out how in the world to be a parent.  That last thing I think is something I'll be working on until the day I die.  You don't stop being a parent when your kids grow up.  You're still their parent.  They're just free to make their own decisions about what to eat for dinner, whether or not to wear clean underwear and wash behind their ears, who they hang out with and what time they go to bed.

Mara is a pretty happy little girl.  She weighs about 17 pounds (I'll have a more exact number for you after her 4 month checkup on Thursday) and is healthy as can be, at least as far as I can tell.  She can roll from her tummy to her back, grab her feet when sitting up or laying down, and is starting to learn to sit up on her own.  She likes prune juice in her bottle occasionally and she likes Gerber pears.  She should be getting some teeth soon - she's drooling like crazy.  She loves to "chat" and have "conversations".  It's the cutest thing!!  Her newest vocal discovery is, to my chagrin, a squeal.  It really is adorable, albeit shrill.

One interesting thing about Mara is that she appears to have developed separation anxiety very early.  My understanding was that babies don't usually exhibit that until about 6 months of age, generally.  She does okay if I leave her with my mom in the morning, but if I leave her with my mom or Corky's mom in the evening.... different story!  Her mood is so different in the evening than it is in the morning.  Maybe that's because she doesn't really nap and so by the time evening comes around she's pretty tired and crabby.  I'm not really sure what it's about, but when I go to teach my evening classes she is just inconsolable.  She'll cry until she throws up.  She won't eat, won't go to sleep, nothing helps.  It's so awful for her and for whoever is taking care of her.  I believe I'm going to have to quit my evening classes.  :(  Which is a shame since I just got that job.  Oh well.  Mara is more important.