four months of mae

Here she is... 4 months old!

You may notice that she is not wearing her 4 month sticker. That's because this happened:

Each month it gets a little more complicated to take a good photo! Mae was all smiles today... except for the 30 minutes where I was holding the camera. At least we got this nice glamour shot.

And this was the closest thing to a smile. Still pretty cute.

This month, Mae perfected rolling onto her tummy which she does almost immediately when laid down... even in her sleep. Sometimes when I check on her at night, she is laying completely face down with her mouth and nose smashed against the mattress. I think she does this just to freak me out, since there's no way it's comfortable to sleep like that.

She definitely knows the right motions for crawling but doesn't have quite enough arm strength to lift her belly off the ground. She can inchworm across the floor on her face by scrunching up her legs and pushing off. If she's not rolling over, she's either sucking on her toes, chewing on her fingers, or generating enough drool to fill a bath tub. We joke that she is like a snail creating a trail of slime so she can slide across the floor. Are teeth in her near future??

Mae enjoys playing with (and chewing on) this water-filled mat that Grandma bought. Poking it with her hands to move the little floating sea critters helps make tummy time a bit more bearable. She's learning to use her fingers and loves scratching them on different textures like the mesh sides of her Pack 'N Play and my skin while she's nursing (ouch). Sometimes she's downright abusive, smacking me on the jaw or strangling me with my own necklace!

The biggest accomplishment for the month was getting through Mae's first few weeks of daycare. She's still not great with a bottle and will only take it for one lady at the center, Ms. Barb. She's continuing to struggle with gaining weight, is still pretty fussy, and is continuing to show signs of digestive issues. Hopefully month 5 will bring some answers and improvements.

Until then she'll keep trying to jam this whole rattle ball into her mouth!