4 Months

Finley is 1/3 of a year old.  Crazy :)

-As you can see, Finley's eyes are still baby blue.  LOVE IT!

-Finley's hair has stopped receding and the "baby" hairs are coming in.  Every once in a while a long hair, probably from birth, is sticking up in the back.  We call it alfa alFIN.

-sidenote: mom's hair is falling out in clumps :)

-Her eyebrows are really light now - maybe an auburn/red hue?

-Her cheeks are always a little rosy, but way more so after she eats.

-I love her little yoda ears

-Finley is in a phase of exploring everything with her hands and her mouth.  She wants to pull on everything and then try to suck on it.  Part way through the photo shoot Finley ripped the 4 and put one piece of it in her mouth. 

-Most recently she has discovered her feet and is pulling them ever so close to her mouth.  I just love this.  It seems so characteristic of a baby.

-Because of this new found interest in everything around her, she can entertain herself which is a huge blessing.  I find her in the crib in the mornings smiling and grabbing her feet.

-She still loves her Nuk mostly when she's tired or right after eating.  She can take it out and put it back in herself, but usually it's sideways, backwards, etc.  Or she'll be holding it and sucking on her hand. 

-She is beginning to recognize Pat and I which makes coming home from work super fun when I walk in the door.  

-Finley is smiling all the time and will smile at anyone that smiles at her. 

-She can scream and screech, though she was doing this a ton a few weeks ago and less now.  She is currently in a "razzing" phase - essentially a cute farting noise with her lips and blowing spit bubles.  I wonder where she learned to do that?

-When she thinks something is funny (usually tickling her chin or her stuffed frog Frank) she will laugh a lot.

-She is partial to 2 small blankie animals.  Either her bunny (named bunny) or her dog (named duppy pog)

-I think she would stand on our lap all day if we let her.  She isn't really interested in rolling just yet, but her head/trunk control are pretty good when we sit her up or when she stands. 

-She still eats every 4 hours during the day and is usually up 1x/night to eat a little bit.  Finley nurses in the morning and then has bottles of milk for the remainder of the feedings.

-The doctor wants us to wait until 6 months to start rice cereal/oatmeal.  We may experiement with it sooner than that, though.

-Finley's weight has been slowing down since birth.  We can tell she is longer, but leaner.  Our 4 month well-child check-up confirmed this.  Her stats are:

*weight: 12pounds 12ounces

*length: 23 3/4 inches

This puts her in about the 20th percentile.  Interesting since she was above the 90th percentile at birth.  Basically the doctor is not concerned - he says her stats are trending exactly in line with the normal curves and that genetically she is probably not meant to be a big baby like she was at birth.  He recommended continuing the breast milk diet for now.   

-Finley's sleep has improved since last month (which seems like so long ago).  She goes to bed about 7 and wakes up sometime between 1-3am to eat and then sleeps until 6 or 6:30.  Since I don't get up with her at night (Pat feeds her the bottle) and I set my alarm to pump at night (sounds fun, huh?) I am less concerned with weaning the night bottle.  About once a week she sleeps all the way through, but she wakes up ravenous so this is no cake walk.  We'll see what this next month brings us.

-If Finley does wake up during the night and we are pretty sure she's not hungry, she is able to sooth herself back to sleep most of the time.  Otherwise, she has a cool mobile that helps.

-She is napping once in the morning (1-2 hours) and 1-2 times in the afternoon (total 2-3 hours).  The hardest part is keeping up this schedule on the weekends when we want to get so much done.  

 

-Daycare has been a dream so far.  Julie is getting to be like family to us.  Finley gets the star treatment.  She is turning into a our little social butterfly chatting it up with the other daycare kids who fight over who gets to put away her car seat every morning.  Tanner, Fin's biggest fan, says to Julie a few weeks ago "Baby Finley is my favorite because she is beautiful" (he's 3!).  Julie hasn't booted Finley out yet even though Finley has had 2 blowouts on the way to daycare this week and has spit up on her twice before I left for work :)

Little miss Finley has acquired many nicknames in these first few months: 

Star Finley>starfin>starfish (how she sleeps with her arms up)

Fin-shine

Finna-Lee>Finna

Felena

By any name - we love her!