4 Months!

Piper is 4 months old today!!!!!! Our little miss is growing and changing so much!  Okay, so she's still pretty bitsy but we can tell that she is getting bigger. We are pretty used to strangers marveling at the neck control and alertness of our newborn...then we tell them that she is actually just a tiny 4 month old and they are then less amazed at her development and more amazed by her size.

This month our little miss has had some pretty exciting firsts. She has mastered not only rolling over from her tummy to her back, but she can also go from her back onto her tummy. I was a very stunned mommy when I laid her in her crib one morning and went to start some laundry,  when I came back up to her room, I found her on her tummy and sound asleep. She has repeated this same thing for us a few times now at both naptime and bedtime and as far as I'm concerned this is huge, because I never managed to get Riley to fall asleep without nursing, rocking or cuddling.  I am still amazed and excited about this.  She can't let us have it too easy though, her night time sleep has been worse this past month than it was when we first brought her home.  We've gone back to an up every 1.5 to 2 hours during the night and after she wakes for the first time she wants only to stay asleep if she's nestled in my arms.  With her being so small, I realize that sleeping through the night isn't going to happen anytime soon and I'm happy to feed her when she needs it, but this is making for a tired momma so I'm hoping I can coax her into getting her calories during the day so that we can return to her previous 4-6 hour streches of sleep at night.

Ready to show off her new trick to her big sis!

Piper thinks that her hands are pretty interesting and are absolutely perfect for chewing and when she is not busy cramming them into her mouth, she has figured out how to use them grabbing.  Hair, glasses and jewelery are her main targets, but she also is starting to like her toys and teethers and she loves to grab her toes and stretch them up to her mouth too!  This month, she has decided that she doesn't mind hanging out on her back as much as she did at first.  She is completely content to lay in her bassinet and look at her mobile or roll around on a blanket with some toys to chew on.  In a complete change from the first couple of months where she wanted nothing to do with being put down for any reason, she now actually craves a little independent time and is cranky when she doesn't get it.  She is still a momma's girl  though and not afraid to let anyone know it.

Piper is such a happy little girl. She loves to talk to us and her whole faces lights up in a great big baby grin when we talk back to her. She is always eager to share her smiles and she has also started to laugh. I'm betting you can guess who got the very first laughs out of her. Piper finds just about everything that a Riley Roo does wildly entertaining and when Roo is particularly hilarious Piper busts out in laughter, the kind that make her little belly shake. These little girls make my heart happy!