You've come a Long way, baby

Layne is 4 months old today!

She is a wonderful, darling baby. Her teachers tell me that they fight over who gets to hold her and feed her. Sometimes I think they say those things to all the parents - which isn't such a bad thing - but I do appreciate the fact that they are so loving toward her.

She is also progressing at school, due much in part to the care they provide. Not only is she rolling from her tummy to her back, but she has begun to roll from her back to her tummy (sometimes she gets stuck on her side). Layne coos and makes sweet noises, always with a smile on her face. 

A new development this month is that Layne absolutely recognizes me when she sees me, and she follows my voice if I'm out of sight. It is the best feeling when I pick her up from school and her face lights up. Or when I hear her moving around in her crib and go in to see her and she looks up at me with a huge smile. I love-love-love it.

This month, sleep hasn't been all that great. For the past few weeks, most nights Layne has gotten me up every few hours. It wouldn't be so bad except that I had gotten used to her sleeping mostly through the night, and then this month has been a regression. Turns out she was hungry. She eats more when she nurses than she takes from a bottle, so I have been playing with the amounts of her bottles. In the end, I increased the amount of milk in her bottles at school (she now takes three 5-ounce bottles at school) and trying to fit in an extra feeding in the evenings, and now we seem to be moving in the right direction. And not a moment too soon...I'm exhausted.

Layne loves her big sister. She gazes at Larkin in awe, and she responds when Larkin pays attention to her and tries to make her laugh by making silly faces. I can't wait for them to really be able to play together. In the meantime, Larkin is really growing into her role as big sister.

Here is this month's photo with Racky and Pooh:



And here are some other photos from the past month (taken with my new camera!):