Claire at 4 Months

Second-Child Syndrome makes me sad. I feel like Claire's first four months have flown by in a way Kate's did not. I feel like the whole world stopped for Kate as our first and only baby, and now poor Claire is just "along for the ride" as life moves at a mile a minute. I wonder if younger children are more well-adjusted adults because they realize the whole world doesn't revolve around them. (I'm an only child, so I really wouldn't know!)

I sometimes look at Claire and wonder if I just sat and stared at her enough while I was home on maternity leave. Not for her benefit, but my own. Because I feel like I could just sit and stare at this little sweetheart all day long, but don't get the chance to. (And not just because I work outside the home; because I can't fawn over Claire too much in Kate's presence either, or Kate will start to act out. That's getting better, though.)

This little angel is so precious. At four months, Claire weighs 11 lbs, 11 oz. That's only a bit over what Kate weighed at two months, and is around the tenth percentile, so Claire is still a petite little thing. Her length, 23 in., is also around tenth percentile.

As you can see in the photo above, Claire tends to scratch her head all up, no matter how well we trim her nails. She has a thing for grabbing at her head when she's crying—her ears, her little tufts of hair, and just her scalp in general—and a couple of mornings last week, she had a startling amount of blood smeared on her forehead when we got her up in the morning. So now she has to wear mittens. Poor thing. 

On the brighter side, she is also doing great at tummy time, working on that core strength, and she started rolling over from front to back quite reliably! (That back-to-front roll at two months was a definite fluke, though she's now working on back-to-front as well.)

Her hair is hilarious. She has kind of a halo of baldness worn around the sides from where she lays on it, but has longer tufts on top and on the back. The one on top sticks up, and the one on the back is especially dark, so it's just one dark patch in the middle of the back of her head!

She likes to grab things now, like her paci, her Zeba lovey (below), and a couple other very grabbable toys she got for Christmas. For the record, she's not near so much of a paci girl as Kate was. She prefers her hands, though she doesn't have favorite fingers or thumbs yet. It's hard not to link this to the nursing thing—Claire needs flesh whereas Kate was good with fake nipples. (Similarly, Kate loved our fancy swing, the "Soothing Center," designed to mimic human rocking and heartbeats; Claire will not be fooled. Only human arms will do.)

She wears a size 1 diaper and is starting to wear 3-6 month clothes. A mix of new things and hand-me-downs from Kate. Matt keeps mentioning how I said having another girl would save us so much money on baby clothes, but sometimes I just can't resist! Some things are necessary though (happily for me!) since their birthdays are off just so much that Kate didn't have cooler weather 3-6 month things. Last week, Claire wore shoes for the first time, finally fitting into size 1 shoes!

I went into detail about the nursing and pumping the other day, and recent interactions with another nursing mom and our pediatrician have made me grateful for the production I have, even if it is light compared to the milk factory I was running with Kate. Claire nurses once or twice in the wee hours before work/school, eats four bottles of 5.5 oz. each at school, and nurses a few more times in the evening and before bed. Girl loves the boob, and I love those special moments with her!

Love my sweet girl, Claire Moriah!