Big Girl

She's a growing girl! She had her four-month visit to the doctor yesterday (in the POURING down rain.......that was fun). She's perfect - in the words of her doctor, "I tried to find something wrong with her, but there just isn't anything!" She's now 14 pounds, 6 ounces, and 25 1/2 inches long. This puts her in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. She also had her second round of shots yesterday. She did really well - Mommy remembered to give her Tylenol before we left the house, too, which might have helped some.

We still can't fully decide who she looks more like. There are some features that are undeniably Scott or undeniably me, but sometimes she looks so much like him that there isn't anything I see that looks like me. It's fun to see her features develop and change. I can't wait to see what she'll look like as she gets older. When I envision her in the future, I see scenes, but no face.

It's amazing watching her change. Yesterday morning when she woke up, I was astounded to see that she had grown and her face had changed literally overnight. She slept for 12 hours, so I guess her body was hard at work all night.

She's been sleeping through the night consistently for a couple of weeks now. Let me tell you......it's a wonderful thing. I told my sister that it couldn't have been any more wonderful if angels themselves had drifted down from heaven and said, "You sleep tonight, Jessica. We've got this." You know you're tired during those first couple of months, but you kind of get into a routine of getting up. Once you can sleep through the night again, it's a very strange sensation. I still find myself waking up just to check on her. She's fine, of course, but that doesn't stop me from checking.

She's really taking to her right thumb. We've known this was going to be a battle for us since she was born. She has always loved having her fingers in her mouth - more than other babies, it seems - and now she's definitely preferring her thumb to even her pacifiers. She will literally pull her paci out of her mouth with her left hand and immediately stick her right thumb back in her mouth, over and over again. We tried really hard to keep her away from thumb-sucking as a habit, but we might have lost. Leah - 1. Mommy and Daddy - 0.

She's trying to roll over, too, and gone are the days of being able to leave her on the floor and know she'll be right there when I get back. She scoots all over the place on her back. That's probably part of why she has a big bald spot worn on the back of her head. I'm looking forward to that filling back in.

She's smiling all the time. She's a very, very happy baby. We know something is very wrong when she lets out an outright cry.

It's getting more and more fun to play with her, too. She actually takes an interest in her toys now, and reaches for things when we hand them to her. Everything drifts right to her mouth, where it promptly is doused in drool.

We'll be starting her on cereal tonight. She had mashed potatoes on Saturday night, and really seemed to like the idea of more of that coming her way. It's exciting, because she's growing and developing all on her own, but it's so sad, too. We have a bunch of baby spoons and dishes occupying space in our cabinets now. It just seems too soon for all of this!