Four Month Update

Well this may be pretty quick, since my baby typically takes the shortest naps when I'm trying to get something done.  Overall, things have been sort of calming down here.  We're starting to get more into a rhythm (which most definitely means we will have a terrible night tonight) and I feel like I'm slowly becoming a real person again.

Olivia is 4 months old now.  She's 16 1/2 pounds, which puts her in the 97 percentile for weight.  She's also in the 95th percentile for her height.  Unfortunately, my little pin head is in the 1 percentile for her head....

So here's what we're dealing with these days:

Up until last week, Olivia had been eating every three hours during the day, and she was being really inconsistent about her sleeping at night.  Some nights she would easily sleep from 10 pm until 8:30 am.  Other nights she was waking up sometime between 1 and 4 am.  It was getting to be pretty frustrating, and I knew she wasn't doing it because she was hungry because she really wasn't that interested in eating during the day.  We decided to experiment with trying to stretch her feedings out to 4 hours.  It's made a huge difference.  She's eating much better now at each feeding, and she's slept through the night ever since (JINX).  One thing that she's started doing since we've stretched the feedings out is communicating her frustration at not being fed right away.  She acts like she's STARVING, which I promise you, she is not.  As soon as it gets close to the four hour mark, she becomes a piranha and comes at me with her mouth wide open.  She starts sucking on or biting anything nearby.  Her hands, my face, my collarbone, whatever.  So if anyone has noticed all the hickeys I have now, it's not because my romantic life has picked up any.  It's because my daughter is impatient.

One downside to stretching Olivia's feedings out is that my body is still trying to adjust.  At the end of those 4 hours, I look like someone straight out of the plastic surgeon's office with some new, hard breast implants that haven't settled yet.  It's kind of a nice change of pace from my normal body until Olivia kicks me hard in the chest while I'm changing her diaper.  Then I feel like dying.  

At the suggestion of Olivia's doctor, I've started giving her rice cereal once a day, during her dinner feeding.  The first day, she thought it was great fun and a hilarious experiment.  She has since soured on the idea.  I'm really hoping her interest in it will return because I've started to dread dinner time.  It's really exhausting spoon feeding a baby who's angry and trying to kick the spoon out of your hand.

I know it's unlikely because it's so early, but I'm convinced Olivia has to be teething.  She is constantly drooling and chewing on anything she can.  Sometimes when she's especially fussy, I'll just rub her gums with my finger and she quiets down.  Her whole body goes limp with relaxation, just like I do when I'm getting my back scratched.  Jacob, if you're reading this, I WANT A BACK SCRATCH.

My hair has finally started falling out, which SUCKS.  I knew it was going to happen, and everyone warned me it would be gross and disturbing, but seriously, it's awful.  It's shocking, the amount of hair I brush out before and after every shower.  Between the hair loss and my acne (that I'm blaming on hormones but is more likely stress-related), I looked like I signed up to test an experimental drug.  Side effects: acne, hair loss, weight gain, crazy hormone swings.  Maybe I should get a weave or a Kim Zolciak-style wig.

Image via Reality TV Gifs

In addition to losing my hair due to hormones, I have lost a considerable amount to my daughter's grubby little fingers.  She's really figured out how to grab onto things and pull, and the right side of my head has taken the brunt of that new skill.  She pulled my hair so hard the other day I expected to see brain matter attached to the clump of hair I pulled out of her fist.  I'm not even SLIGHTLY tender-headed and she's made me cry like six times.  I'm ready for this phase to be over.  Also, if you're ever around my daughter and choose to hold her, PLEASE don't wear earrings.  Twice now I've seen her grab onto someone's earrings and I was positive she was going to rip them clean through their earlobes.  I'm telling you now, if I see this happen, I will barf.

Okay I'm off to check on sleeping beauty.  But I have BIG PLANS to do a Pre-Oscar fashion post in the next couple of days.  THERE ARE GOWNS WE NEED TO SEE.