Has it really been three months?

This blog is becoming more and more sporadic! I have notes jotted down in various locations to try and remember everything our little princess is doing. I'm a bit sad that she's already five months old, despite very conscious attempts to cherish every moment.

So, on June 16 (according to a note I found), Grace rolled over purposefully for the first time. She was looking at me folding laundry, standing behind where she was laying on the floor. She waited until John came in to see what she was doing before she finally rolled over from her back to her tummy! Needless to say, she now does this constantly. She still has not really mastered rolling the other direction, although she does every once in a while. Once the rolling over became a regular occurrence (probably mid-July), we started leaving one of her arms out of her swaddle when she sleeps. This way she can sleep on her tummy and have more control over moving around and getting her head in an appropriate position to breathe.

Toward the middle of July, Grace started laughing. She'll laugh when tickled or if I make a funny face, but she just doesn't laugh all the time. I'm hoping she'll start to do more laughing rather than being an overly serious child. She sure does smile a lot, though!

About two days after her four-month check-up, Grace started doing push-ups. She's in better shape than I am! Just yesterday she began pushing up with her arms and putting one knee under her, so I can now imagine her crawling in a few months. This should be a sign that we need to start baby-proofing, but honestly we'll probably just procrastinate on that one until she actually breaks something we care about or nearly injures herself on some object we generally consider innocuous.

Unfortunately, Grace was underweight at her four-month checkup. She only gained a bit over a pound in two months, but she grew to 24 inches. Ever since that appointment on July 5, eating has been the focus of my life: me eating more, Grace nursing enough and latching correctly, pumping, pumping, and more pumping to try to increase supply. My quality of life has taken a nosedive. Seems it was all for naught since we returned to the doctor at five months only to find all that work only added a few more ounces to our daughter's little body. From the way she acts you'd never know she was underweight. She seems perfectly healthy, but I realize she probably should gain more than a few ounces in a month...or a pound in two months. I guess my breast milk is the equivalent of water from a calorie standpoint. I don't even understand how this is possible.

On the bright side, I've cut down the nursing and pumping, so I feel I have more free time. Since Grace takes a bottle half the time, if anyone else is around, they can feed her while I get in what feels like extra hours of non-feeding related activity. Hopefully one day she can weigh enough that I don't have to feed her every three hours and wake her up at 10:30 p.m. to feed her once again before she sleeps through the night.

At five months, because of the calorie/weight issues, I started giving her rice cereal once a day. I highly doubt this will actually add any calories to her diet since I'm guessing she may ingest only a couple teaspoons of the stuff. The majority of it gets spit or drooled out all over her bib, arms, hands, legs, and me. She's still getting the hang of swallowing without sucking. I add a tiny bit of cinnamon to the cereal since she seems to like it better that way. Next week we'll try some real vegetable puree.

At the end of July, Grace took her first trip to Estes Park. It was the perfect week to leave Oklahoma as the temperatures soared into the 110's for the first time all summer. The cool air in Estes Park was perfection. Grace loved hiking (aka: sleeping in her ergo baby carrier). She had a little cold while we were there, so it was nice to have some extra hands around to help with the parenting duties. This vacation also included Grace's first airplane ride. She loved it: being held the entire time and getting to see so many people smiling at her. Granted, the flight was only an hour and a half, so I'm not sure we're ready to head off to Australia or anything yet.

Two days after we got home, our power went out...for two days. It was in the 100's those days. We moved out, quickly and in the dark, that first night and stayed with a friend. I became horribly ill the day we moved back home. Is there such a thing as a 24-hour flu? If so, I had it.

And this will have to do for now. Time to feed our little munchkin again! Maybe the next post will be some photos.