Babies Grow A Lot in Four Months

 

This was Guinevere earlier today, Memorial Day 2012. Today was significant for our littlest one because she got her first "real food." Being premature, she did not even begin to take an interest in food until two weeks ago, at six months. We started her with cereal first, and today we gave her sweet potatoes. This makes our third daughter who experienced sweet potatoes for her first food feeding.

But Evvie hasn't always been this big. These next couple of pictures were taken on Veda's second birthday in January:

 

This second picture shows Daddy and Evvie looking through a seed catalogue to figure out what to plant in the raised beds this year. Since then, two raised beds have been built, and squash, tomatoes, peppers, salad mix and cucumbers are already planted. Carrots are in separate planting containers and beans, chard and another kind of cucumber are yet to be planted. We did have strawberry plants with little berries present, but they were accidentally mowed over.  Oops!

Did I mention a second birthday? Yep. Our VedaBug turned two on the 27th of January. We had a small family celebration with her at home and then the next day I held a very mini party where we got the first-ever picture of my three girls with their two cousins, or all of Oma and Opa's kids in one shot.

I know it looks like Guinevere is squashing Lincoln but, trust me, he was fine. Not only did Veda get more presents at her little party, but she also got another specially made cake from her Auntie Stephie:

 It was a purple jeep! Veda continues to love her cars. And shoes. She loves cars and shoes. I often see her racing her cars around the house while wearing green galoshes. Then she pauses to remove galoshes and put on purple Maryjane's. And then I look back a while later and she is wearing her sister's school shoes, leaving a wake of shoes and cars behind her.

Something else exciting happened when Veda turned two:  She got her first knitting bag and the opportunity to go with Mama to knitting! If you have been following along for a while, you will remember that Sylvia got this same experience. Veda was just as excited as her older sister had been.

But back to Guinevere . . .  

First sleep sack (as opposed to being swaddled.) This happened in mid-February. It always made me sad when we transitioned from the swaddlers to the sleep sacks, so I decided to commemorate the transition of our third with a photograph. But if I thought putting her in a sleep sack was rough, about a month later we moved her cradle from our room into her big sister (Veda's) room. THAT was rough! For me. Not Evvie. She did great. I was the one crying.

First smiles! We saw Evvie's first smiles in mid-February as well. It is hard having a preemie as all those things you long to see in your baby take much longer to appear. By mid-February Guinevere was already four months old. That was a lot of late nights we had to endure before we got any kind of "reward." But her smile is so gorgeous that is was totally worth the wait!

And somewhere in the middle between now and then, she got some good snuggles with her big sisters:

Guinevere had her six month Wellness Check last week. She is growing well! She is still kind of little at only about 13 1/2 pounds (5th percentile) but her length is closer to average and she remains consistent with her growth. She was also given a "performance review" a couple of weeks ago to track her milestones against where she "should" be at according to her gestational age. She performed at the equivalent of a four month old, and this puts her within the "competent" range. I realize it does not sound very exciting, but it actually is a nice reassurance that she is growing and gaining and beginning to show her personality in a timely manner.

As an example of how wonderful her gains in development are, this was a picture taken in April. She was contentedly swinging with Mr. Frog. If I were to try and take this same picture now, I would be hard pressed to because she would be holding onto Mr. Frog and the poor fuzzy amphibian would be clutched in her hand and flopping all over the place!

 Cute, isn't she?  We think so.

And, well, I couldn't resist that last one!