4 months, baby yoga, & mother's day

As I write this post my eyes are nodding off because I am severely sleep deprived. A nasty spring cold hit our household, starting with me, then Madeline, then James. Poor little Madeline is quite stuffy, and that has meant she has woken up crying an average of 7-10 times/night the last 9 or 10 days. Ugh. So all that to be said, this post is going to be random. Ready? Here we go.

So my baby girl is 4 months old, and our 4 month photo shoot was less than easy. I got one smile out of her. Here it is:

 Still pretty cute, right? But she's getting to be a big girl now, and not quite content to just sit and smile for the camera. She's a mover and a shaker, for goodness sake! So as you can see in the pic below, I was trying to keep her from rolling over and she wasn't having it.

 She decided that if she was going to have to stay on her back, she could at least have fun with her puppy.

And having fun for Madeline means eating whatever she can get her hands on. 

 After chewing her puppy, she tossed him to the side...

And got back to the business of rolling. Because that is what 4 month olds do.

 Okay Madeline, I see how it is. Monthly onesie photo shoots are going to be tough from here on out, huh?

One new trick Madeline has learned in her 4th month is to eat her foot. How many of you can do that? It takes some real stretching capabilities.

The one foot in the mouth trick has progressed to two...here she is doing her little yoga pretzel. I'm sure she'll surpass me in yoga abilities any day now.

 We are also realizing that Madeline is much more attuned to her surroundings now, which is good and bad. It makes it even more fun to interact with her, and to watch her respond to her environment. But it means we can't quite schlep her around anywhere and expect her to sleep through it anymore. So we've been trying to have a better naptime routine for her, which involves wrapping her up tight so her little hands can't pull that pacifier out of her mouth. I snapped these photos one day when she was sleeping away peacefully; that is the quilt that James used as a baby and it's so sweet to think of her using the same quilt as her daddy.

And we just celebrated my first Mother's Day. We were all still feeling a little yucky from our colds on Mother's Day, so we had a lazy morning and then took a picnic to a nearby park and lake which was lovely. It was a perfect day - mid 70's, very mild breeze, and abundant sunshine. 

 Augustine says that to have children is to populate the heavenly city. As I was reflecting on my first Mother's Day, I really felt like having Madeline has been like having a slice of heaven here on earth. She is such a wonder to both James and me!