Four

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3 Months    |    4 Months

Beanie Baby turned 4 months on July 8. Wow! This is such a fun stage and she's absolutely great! I attribute it ALL to prayer, prayer, and more prayer. God answers prayers, so why not pray every single day for Bina and have great expectations that He will answer those prayers? Sounds like a win to me!

Bina is the champion at sleeping, she gets that from her mama for sure. Going down between 7 and 7:30 pm, she might have a quick cry for a couple of minutes, and then off to dream-land until 6:30 am. Yep, this blessed little creature is sleeping 11 hours. We did follow the 'Baby Wise' schedule pretty strictly and I can't complain about it as it worked like magic for us. She naps for an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon.

Outside of the pregnancy 'bliss' (aka: non-sexy mum transformation), I've completed my metamorphous into 'mom,' no longer hearing my baby scream in the grocery store and being completely unaware of my constant swaying even without a baby in hand, not to mention the shameless idiotic baby songs complete with dance, charades, crazy faces and baby-pitched voice that consumes a large part of our day. Maybe someday I'll shave my legs again, but for now, it's all mom mode.

I love that Bina looks just like her daddy. She has my fish-lips, poor thing, but the rest is all Ben. His eyes, his face, his facial expressions, his calm demeanor...she's daddy's girl. Even my 'claim' of her dimple could possibly come from her pappa as well, we both have them. I love that she's so full of joy and every single day is such a new experience for her. She laughs at everything and nothing. You can work so hard to crack a smile from her, but she can bust a gut laughing hysterically at the floor.

She started on solids and is doing great. She doesn't love everything, but we're taking it super slow, just introducing texture and taste to her to begin. She's doing great at feeding overall, doubling her birth weight, and then some, already. She's sitting up with very little assistance and loves standing with you holding her arms. Her personality is beginning to shine now, and it's so fun to see her develop into a little person, beyond baby.

It's such a relief to 'know' her cries now. To know which ones are fake as she squalks out some screams and waits to see if anyone will come fetch her (don't be fooled, she'll give you a triumphant smile if you do and she'll try her trick over and over), which ones are real where she just needs some cuddles and security, which ones are an upset tummy, which ones are tired and time for a nap, etc. It's taken some time, but we've finally come to an understanding of her language, in cries. She has another language now too, her coos and goos and caas and gaas...always chatting away at something.
Although I know it will be fun to experience her crawling, walking, talking and more...this stage is one I don't want to forget. She's sweet and cuddly, still small enough to carry around easily and her smiles can melt hearts. She enjoys being held by strangers and she hasn't learned what it means to be 'bored' yet, so we can play with things over and over again and it's always new.