Four Month Well Baby Check-up

Dr. Nasser declared Eleanor "perfect" today. He said she's growing well and that her alertness and responsiveness and muscle tone are exactly what he looks for in babies her age. He told us we're doing everything right and was just tickled at Eleanor's playfulness and reactions to other people and to her environment. She weighed 14 pounds, 8 ounces today and was 26.5 inches long. On the weight chart, that puts her right at about the 75th percentile, following the gentle curve nicely. However, that puts her off the chart in height. Rather than following the height chart nicely, the line tracking her growth jumps up sharply from where it was last month, leaving her somewhere around the 99th percentile. I felt validated after seeing that; I've been worried that I'm advancing her to the next size clothes too soon - that I'm doing something wrong, shrinking things in the wash, perhaps. No, no. She really is the size of a six-month-old baby. I wonder when she'll slow down, since it's just not in her genes to be a WNBA star.

New Things

We've been putting Eleanor in her little Bumbo seat regularly. She really seems to like being able to look around at things. Yesterday I pulled out her jumper and put her in it. She got a kick out of being the same height as the dogs. She was playing a little "game" of turning around on accident, and therefore "losing" me. When she figured out how to get turned back around she thought it was the greatest thing ever, like I'd somehow played a little trick on her. I've also been sharing water out of my cup with her. She makes a total mess, but thinks it's great fun to drink out of Mommy's cup. She gets frustrated with me sometimes when I won't share - like when I'm drinking juice or milk. Evidently, she still doesn't understand the difference and why she's too young for other things. I've also been giving her water in a bottle lately to help her get used to the bottle idea so that it's not so tough when I go back to work in three weeks. Hopefully, this works.