five months

dear Sweetpea,

what excitement we've had since the last update! the highlight of this month was definitely your Grammy Kim and Auntie Krista coming to visit (part of a whirlwind trip to see your Uncle John in Colorado and Auntie Kira in North Carolina). i had lots of plans for sightseeing, like a trip to the zoo, the aviary, and Phipps Conservatory, but it turns out that just relaxing at home was the perfect way to spend time together. you loved bouncing up and down on Grammy's lap while she sang "Trot, Trot to Boston", and you grabbed onto Auntie Krista's long hair and showed her all your toys. we wish they didn't live so far away, but we're lucky enough to be flying out to Seattle next month to see the whole Geiger gang, so it wasn't as hard to say goodbye this time.

you're getting closer and closer to sitting up on your own, although you have a tendency to slooooowly do a perfect forward fold until your nose is touching your toes. all the better to chew on them! sometimes i think you like sucking on your big toe even better than your thumb -- silly girl. your new trick this month is your turtle face. you suck your bottom lip in and curve your top lip over it like a little reptile. we call you Gert the Turt! 

you are still our little peanut, weighing 12 pounds 9 ounces at your 4 month checkup (11th percentile), but you're 26 inches long (92nd percentile) and well into 6 month clothes. our pediatrician had been a little concerned about your weight, but you're steadily following that 10th percentile growth curve so she's not worried about it anymore. you certainly are a good eater and you'll take three 5 oz bottles at daycare in addition to nursing.

first "school" picture - copyright Lifetouch 2014

last week, you had your first foray into the wonderful world of science -- and you were the experimental subject! we got a letter from Carnegie Mellon University a few months ago, recruiting babies for research on vocabulary development in their Infant Language and Learning Lab. on a very rainy Tuesday, we drove over to the university campus and you sat with me in a small room equipped with a big television screen. you're not "allowed" to watch TV at home (although you definitely crane your neck to see it), so you were absolutely enthralled by the graphics on the screen. you sat perfectly still for the entire 20 minutes while they played a recording of random syllable strings, and videotaped your eye movements to see what you paid attention to on the screen. the research assistant told me that a lot of babies cry toward the end of the study because they get bored. you just kept looking and looking -- my good little scientist! as if the thrill of developmental psychology weren't enough, they even sent you home with some swag. (no word on what your results might mean yet -- they'll send me a survey in 6 months and a year to see what words you understand and which ones you say, and will attempt to correlate that information with the study data from you and the fifteen other babies who participated.)

a t-shirt to grow into, and a penguin book! 

April 20 marked your very first Easter Sunday, and we celebrated with the Easter Vigil mass on Saturday night and a delicious dinner at Grammy Sabrina and Pappy Joe's. you snuggled with your great-grandparents, and were very spoiled by an Easter basket from Grammy that's bigger than you are. you are lucky to have such wonderful family on both coasts! 

last but not least, my very favourite thing that you did this month is ... sleep through the night! some nights you still wake up around two or three a.m. to eat, and i do cherish that cuddle time because i know it won't last forever. but! i was beginning to think i wouldn't ever get more than four or five hours of sleep at a stretch again for the rest of my life. thank you, baby girl, for proving me wrong! 

our precious Greta! we can't wait to see what next month holds!