Four Months

Holy cannoli! I can’t believe my squirrel is 4 months old today! I realize too that I haven’t given specific Harper updates since Thanksgiving month was taken over by…well…giving thanks. So here it goes.

We had to do some shopping earlier this week since Harper’s just now outgrowing her 0-3 month clothes. We’ve officially graduated to the 3-6 month clothes – we’re big time now. We didn’t buy clothes for her for 0-6 months because we weren’t sure if she’d be home and what she might be wearing as far as her size goes. But we’re now into the winter (well, San Antonio 60-70 degree winter) and so her wardrobe had some holes.

About two weeks ago, Harper was spitting up so much that we decided to make some changes to help her out. While we do think its reflux, she doesn’t have the burning or irritability that typically goes along with reflux. Have you ever seen “Stand By Me”? Remember the pie eating contest with Davie “Lardass” Hogan? Now you have a visual of Harper for about an hour after she’s eaten. She just opens up and projectile vomits about half of what she’s just taken in. Reflux medicine cuts down on the acid but not necessarily the spit up. Since Harper didn’t seem too bothered by the reflux and with her gastrointestinal issues (that being a protruding liver and bowel from her stomach), our pediatrician didn’t really want to put her on anything that would cut down on the amount of stomach acid since it helps fight bacteria. Instead, we decided to make the leap to rice cereal a little early to thicken up the breast milk and to coat her stomach. We’re currently adding it to her bottle but I think we might move on with a little spoon action in the next couple of weeks. While she now sports a bib everywhere she goes, the rice cereal has helped cut down on the spit up. We had to go straight from the Level One bottle nipples to Y Cut nipples so we had about 4 days of nearly drowning Harper every time she ate but I think she’s gotten the hang of it.

Harper’s doing exceptionally well with her physical therapy. This week, Elaine the PT said that Harper was looking right on track, if not ahead of where she should be. She’s doing a great job with her “sit-ups” where I pull her arms and she uses her stomach muscles to bring the rest of her body along. Harper’s head control has gotten strong and she’s really starting to lose the bobble head look. Her tummy time has gotten better, although, now that her O scab is falling off, it’s pretty irritating to her. She ends up with bloody gauze wrappings almost every time she does tummy time. We’re working on her sitting skills and continuing to find new ways to get that ever important tummy time. Harper is grabbing for anything in her reach and has started grasping onto objects. She can now grab her pacifier, pull it out of her mouth and look at it. It then gets tossed aside only to realize seconds later that it’s not in her mouth where she wants it.

Harper’s still a little too small due to her size for some of her big toys. I keep trying to put her in the jumperoo but as you can see, she needs to pack on a few extra pounds for it. We’ll get there though.
Harper continues to be a fan of sleeping. We’re putting her down at 8:30pm, waking her for her last bottle at 10pm and then she sleeps until about 6:30am or 7:30am. She sometimes squirms a little in the night requiring a trip across the house to place her pacifier back in her mouth but she promptly falls right back asleep once replaced. She usually goes back down right after that morning feeding and gets up for the day around 8:30am or 9am. Harper isn’t too keen on her naps. She’ll go down around 11am for a short morning nap and then usually takes one sometime in the afternoon but typically only naps for an hour or so. She loves to doze while we’re out running errands but if she’s sleeping so well at night, naps aren’t too high on my priority list.

Harps is FULL of smiles. A big laugh still only comes out every now and again but she has this little giggle squeal that is constant. She’s also just found her voice…and she’s learning how to use it! Her babble in the morning and evenings is loud and animated.

She loves gnawing on her hands and they are constantly in her mouth. Harper’s a big fan of the pacifier. We’ve tried out a few different kinds but she still loves her Soothies from the hospital. And it’s a good thing we’re stocked up on them because Rooney’s recently realized he likes them too. We keep finding them in the yard. And don’t worry, they go in the trash after Rooney’s sucked on one. While we do consider Harper and Rooney to be brother and sister, we don’t want them that close!

Speaking of Rooney, he’s still very interested in Harper and she’s just recently started to be interested in him. She gets very quiet when she realizes he’s around and just watches him. She did scare the bejesus out of him the other day when he came up to sniff her and she projectile puked at him. The cat stays pretty far away from the girl so they haven’t had too much of a chance to interact.

We have two Flip cameras, one of which gets used pretty often and the other is our backup. I took some videos with our back up and plugged them in today to download them and discovered some stuff I had totally forgotten about. I wanted to share one because it was taken exactly a year ago this weekend, the day before our first doctor’s appointment to confirm our pregnancy. I realize I said the wrong date two different times – it really was December 6, 2009. I had planned to document our entire pregnancy through video but once we found out about Harper’s birth defect and were told there was a chance she might not make it, I stopped the process. Also, I did this on a Sunday morning hence the lack of make-up. I see myself a year ago today and think of everything we’ve been through and how different my life is today compared to that day - crazy and amazing all at the same time. That girl in the video has no idea what the next year is going to bring. I love my little girl even more than I could have ever imagined and she is so worth the ride its been since that video was taken.

Happy 4 months Harper Girl!