the HowePeel Sessions: M.I.A. part deux

Ok, let's try this again. Thanks to Tiffany for calling me out--not surprisingly, I didn't make it back yesterday to give you an HP status update. Lemme see...we can talk about swaddling, sleeping, eating, weight/height stats, flipping over, squirming and hair. Let's begin!

Harper went in for her four-month check-up last Monday. The appointment was originally scheduled for the previous Friday, but I had to move it. Friday was my last day of work, and I couldn't possibly have left Harper with a babysitter after getting shot in the leg, twice! She weighs 13.5 lbs and measured 24 1/4 inches long. Not bad! She handled the immunizations like a champ, too. She cried for 90 seconds or so after the initial attack, and quickly regained her composure. She was a cupcake for the rest of the day!

Given her age and an assortment of other indicators, Harper is ready to add new things to her diet. Namely, Gerber rice cereal. It couldn't possibly taste any blander, but hey, I'm just following orders! Getting her to go along with this new experience has been anything but easy. She makes awful faces and the cereal just falls right off her tongue onto her bib (or the chair, table or me). I skipped yesterday, but I think she finally consumed a bit of cereal on Sunday. And by "a bit," I'm talking like a max of one teaspoon. All in good time, I suppose!

This little rug rat has gotten squirmier by the minute. She squirms for the sheer sake of squirming. She has to be strapped securely into every chair and swing, or she is going to shake her rump right outta there. She also now resists being strapped into said chair with a vengeance I've not seen before. She acts as though you are trying to strap down her spirit and throw away the key! Once all the straps and doodads are fastened, she calms right back down. Weirdo!

Along with squirming comes the flipping. Babies tend to not be big fans of spending too much time on their tummies. Harper definitely falls into this category. However, the instant you set her on the ground to play on her back, she flips right over onto her stomach. Her technique is flawless, I must admit. She has the leg swing and arm tuck down pat. Sometimes she can handle being in this position for several minutes, but more often that not, she screams in displeasure within 60 seconds. Just flip her back over, you say? Well, that might be an easy solution if she didn't flip herself right back onto her tummy. (When she does this, I recite an "Anchorman" quote in my head..."I immediately regret this decision!") Her short term memory needs work, too. One day I tallied over twenty flips in a span of minutes. Occasionally, she will flip herself over onto her back again, but most of the time she gets too frustrated to remember she is capable of fixing it on her own! In a nutshell, she is inching closer and closer to mobility, and I hear that is when this job really gets fun!

Now, swaddling and sleeping go hand in hand. Harper has been swaddled for bed since day one. I am a master swaddler, albeit self-proclaimed. If they gave awards for parenting, I would so steal that category. (By the way, http://www.miracleblanket.com/ has been my saving grace!) Anyhoo, swaddling is the main reason Harper has always been such an excellent sleeper. Until now. Ol' Punkster is now too long to fit into the miracle blanket and too strong to remain in my tightest swaddle. And so, sleep at the Peel house has been anything but sound over the last couple of weeks. I've been taking one for the team by getting up several times during the night to help soothe Punkie back to sleep. Jeff tries to get up to help, but I send him back to bed. He still has to go into the office every morning and bring home the bacon, so I figure we can only afford one of us to be sleep-deprived!

Last night wasn't too bad. I don't quite have my perfect sleeper back yet, but we're getting close! We're trying to work on Harper's self-soothing ability, so she can put herself back to sleep without our help. She can put herself to sleep at bedtime, but she hasn't been as successful when she wakes herself up later on. Before this little hiccup, Harper was sleeping 8-9 uninterrupted hours a night. My goal is to have her sleeping 10-12 hours when this is all said and done. Wish us luck!

Last, but certainly not least, Harper is sprouting more hair! You can actually start to see it on top now! When she was born, she had a ring of hair low on her head stretching from ear to ear, and nothing on top. The original patch of hair has taken on a strawberry blonde coloring, but all of her new hair is the whitest blonde. She has a long way to go, but we're happy to see some growth coming along! Oh, and have I ever mentioned the one strand of hair on the top of her head that must measure five inches long? What a show-off! When I first pointed it out for Jeff, he wanted me to cut it off. I couldn't do it. It makes me giggle too much when I catch sight of it!

Surely, I owe y'all some pictures, too. Enjoy!