SteelyKid at four months

SteelyKid was four months old on Sunday. (This post is late because we had a pediatrician appointment today and I wanted to get her numbers.)

SteelyKid is 13 pounds, 15 ounces (55th percentile); 25.5 inches long (80th); and has a head circumference of 16 7/8 inches (75th). Her length is up, percentile-wise, from two months ago (50th), which news makes me a little less certain that infant clothes are sized small.

She was cleared to start on solids today, so we'll try some rice cereal soon. If she will eat a reasonable amount of that, it will make our lives a lot easier: days when I'm at work, she's fed pumped milk, except sometimes there's not enough, so she's needed formula . . . but we have reason to believe that she's sensitive to dairy, and a trial of soy-based formula seemed also to give her trouble, though at least with much less screaming. (Also, she's started refusing to take formula unmixed with milk, a discovery that had me bolting home from work one day so she'd have, you know, food.) So if we can top off her meals with cereal instead, we can maybe duck formula altogether . . . (We also have samples of a different formula to try, though I'm dubious about it as its principal selling point, based on the label, seems to be that it's lactose-free, and my understanding is that lactose is rarely the problem. If anyone has recommendations for milk-based formulas that have had the troublesome cow's-milk protein broken down, I'll take them.)

Her big accomplishment this month is "standing," supported by us or someone else. She loves it: a whole new perspective on the world! Playing Giant Monster Baby destroying Tokyo (a.k.a. Chad's torso)! Also, she can now sit up straight from an angled-back position, though not from lying down yet, and yesterday she rolled over—with, admittedly, a tiny bit of help from gravity, because the couch cushion was slightly slanted downward, but still. (Chad says she was deeply startled to suddenly find herself on her stomach, but recovered soon enough.)

Her hands continue to be fascinating, both her own and ours, and still go in her mouth (when she's not sticking her tongue out), as does everything else. (Well, not her knees, which she's recently discovered too.) We suspect that she's starting to feel teeth coming in, because lately she's been chomping amazingly hard on our fingers and a wooden teething ring. She's also started reaching for the dog, not just tracking her visually, but we've been manuvering her away from succeeding since, you know, lack of fine motor skills. She's allowed to grab at her toys, of course, and it seems like she's figured out that if she waves certain ones around vigorously, they make noise.

She's laughing much more this month, an unexpectedly deep chuckle. She's definitely ticklish now, around her collarbone and down her torso. She continues to be a smiley baby, and it gives me a nice glow for hours when I go in to the nursery in the mornings, find her awake, and get a great big smile. In ambiguous news, she's developed a different cry for pain: on one hand, more information! On the other, it's a really piercingly awful sound.

Her cradle cap is still hanging on. (T-Gel shampoo smells awful. For all that she looks silly when we apply baby oil, that at least doesn't turn my stomach.) She's got a bit of eczema, for which she gets greased down regularly. I don't have anything to report in the baby-sleeping arena, because of the aforementioned trouble with formula (if she's in pain, there's only so many things to do at night) and because we haven't had time yet to agree on a daytime strategy. And I very devoutly hope that her unhappiness at being vaccinated today doesn't carry over into tonight, because gosh, I could use some more sleep. It's a good thing she's the cutest baby in the universe.

Reminder: no unsolicited advice.

Update: offered her a little rice cereal. She didn't look as disgusted as rivka's Alex (see icons in comments), or end up with most of it on her bib, but she didn't act really excited, either. Also, feeding her this way is going to take forever, at least to start.