Dearest Adalynn,
It is hard to believe that you are already 4 months old! What a joy you are to our family. From the moment you were born you have brought such a special spirit into our home that is so different from your brothers. The biggest difference we see is that you are completely CALM. Just so easy going about what is going on around you. You love to just sit in your bouncer while I’m cooking dinner and you will just watch me. Your head turns whenever someone enters the room but you just look at them curiously at them without a peep. You are now smiling like crazy but Daddy and I had to work HARD to get you to smile for the first time and it took us MONTHS to do. We tried everything from making funny faces, to tickling you, to bouncing, to pat-a-cake, to singing. You still have yet to giggle but we have gotten one big BURST of what we think was a laugh when holding you in the air with our arms and bringing you down and bonking noses with you. Thats the closest we’ve gotten. You are just so calm about everything and don’t get overly excited. Daddy and I love this about you though as you are just about as easy going as they come which is a big difference from your high energy always have to be moving brothers. We love that you will just sit quietly on our laps looking around and discovering the world around you. We often get told how amazing it is that you just sit so calmly wherever you are and that you are a really good baby. We agree! We sure are lucky to have you!
You had your 4 month appointment recently and you were completely average in everything. Around the 50th percentile for head, weight, and length. You are so petite compared to how your brothers were at this stage.
You still are an excellent eater and usually take a 5-6 oz bottle every 3 hours. You are sleeping through the night like a champ and usually go from about 11:00 to 7:30am. Daddy and I tried feeding you some rice cereal the other day and found that you absolutely DESPISE the stuff. You wouldn’t even let it sit in your mouth and cried when we attempted to do it multiple times. We thought it was just because you were tired but we tried a week later before giving you a bottle and you still hated the stuff. Since then we have also attempted sweet potatoes – but you had the same reaction and spit the stuff out immediately. We plan to keep trying every few weeks and see if you are more interested later.
You like to cuddle before we put you to bed – and this is usually when you are the most talkative. You coo and say “oh oh oh” and sort of sound like you are singing as we rock you in our arms and this is usually our indicator that you are close to drifting off. We usually don’t put you down until your eyes are somewhat heavy. This is different than how we did things with your brothers who were put down awake in their cribs and would cry a little and then drift off to sleep – but you usually will fall asleep in our arms within minutes so we have yet to train you to sleep on your own. I’m sure we’ll pay for it later but for now we just LOVE that special time with you when we get to hold you in our arms and have you nuzzle into us. Because you are our fourth child – life is a LOT busier and we find that we don’t get that cuddle time with you as much as we did with the boys – so we cherish anytime we get to just sit and hold you in our arms and look into your beautiful eyes. Its our favorite part of the day.
Your favorite wake time activity right now is to play on your floor gym. We usually place you on your back with several pull toys hanging down and you love to bat at them with your hands. You are getting good at grabbing onto them now and often will try to pull them into your mouth. You get really excited when on your gym and are usually kicking and flinging your arms all over hitting the objects above you. Sometimes you’ll play up to an 1/2 hour on that thing before wanting to be moved. We’ve tried you in your jumparoo as well – but you don’t seem to interested in that yet and you’ve never actually attempted to jump in it. You do like to look at the objects on it but still aren’t touching them yet.
You absolutely love taking baths and usually get in with Mommy. You just sit calmly looking around and are getting fairly good at doing the back float which is pretty awesome considering all your brothers HATE putting their ears in the water. You just seem to be as happy as a clam having your ears under water though and I’m guessing will be more adventurous when it comes to swimming.
You really love your brothers – and especially seem to respond well to Harrison. He’s a little better about giving you your “space” than Branson and Harrison and he’s always telling you how much he loves you, how tiny you are and bragging to his friends about how you are the cutest baby in the world. Branson also really loves you – but has a more “in your face” approach to you which you don’t like as much. He’s always smothering you in kisses and wanting to be nose to nose taking to you which sometimes irritates you to the point that you grunt at him. But his love for you is obvious. Dawson takes a more hands off approach and doesn’t pay you too much attention- and really hasn’t shown any jealousy to you. He does get VERY concerned every time you cry though and will instantly go and try to find your binky or a toy to give to you to make you feel better. He loves you so much too but tends to show it in a different way.
We all have nicknames we like to call you and are worried you’ll never learn your own name because of all the things we call you. Anything from little miss, to Ella Bella, to Sissy Pants, Sis, Pants, Princess P, love muffin, sugar plum, sweetie pie, little elf baby. They seem to multiply as each month goes by.
In short Adalynn, we all love you SO MUCH and are so grateful you are part of our family. You lighten up all of our lives and bring us so much joy and happiness. Our family wouldn’t be complete without you! Sure love you baby girl!
