Four Months of (Abigail) Joy

...All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
~ Psalm 139:16b

When Lydia was three months old, I wrote a post about her first quarter-year of life. I intended to do the same thing for Abby, but somehow she is already four months old, and the days are flying by faster than I can record them. Before another quarter year escapes me, I want to jot down some notes about my quickly growing baby girl.

Ten days old

Like her sister, Abby didn't want to be put down for the first two months out of the womb. Then, right around eight weeks, I was finally able to lay her in her activity gym for a few minutes without any fussing. Now she reaches for toys and chews on blankets and other things that come near her mouth. I have never seen a baby make as many spit bubbles as she does; at times, her little mouth is like a fountain of foam. When she isn't bubbling, chewing, or complaining about her wet diaper, she gives out some pretty charming smiles. All of her siblings adore her, and Lydia is the first to sing or talk to Baby Abby when she cries, but she seems to have a special fascination with watching and smiling at Donny. She would let Donny hold her in the early weeks even when she cried for Hayden and Lydia. Certainly, there is no shortage of people to love Abby, and I'm thankful that she gets plenty of attention even if I cannot constantly be the one who gives it to her.

She has hated baths since her very first one in the hospital, so I have limited my attempts to bathe her to about once a week. Whether I gave her a sponge bath, put her in the washpod, or laid her down in the big tub, she screamed through every minute of her early bathing sessions. It wasn't until she was over three months old that she learned to tolerate getting clean, and it still isn't her favorite thing. She also doesn't seem to love being worn as much as my first three babies did. I'm not sure if she doesn't like it because I don't put her in the sling or carrier as often I did with the younger ones, or if I don't wear her as often because she doesn't like it. Thankfully, she'll tolerate an Ergo ride in the grocery store during our weekly excursion, but if she isn't super sleepy, she usually objects to being snuggled up close in a sling.

Abby is also my first baby who actually nurses only when she is hungry. My other babies have nursed for comfort and to fall asleep, but if I try to nurse Abby too soon after her last feeding, she isn't interested and may even protest. She is a night owl, often staying awake until midnight or later, but I can't complain since she sleeps well for the rest of the night. Since she was born, there have only been a handful of nights when I had to actually get out of bed and walk with her in the wee hours of the night. In fact, in late December, she worked up from sleeping a five or six hour stretch in the Pack N Play bassinet to as many as eight or nine hours! Since we rearranged at the beginning of the year and she got a cold, her sleeping has not been quite so undisturbed. We got a rocking stand for her Moses Basket, which fits nicely in our new room, but I usually bring her into our bed at the first sign of nighttime fussing. Most of the time, she settles back to sleep quickly in the early morning hours, and sleeps in late enough that I can get up and complete most if not all of my workout before she opens her eyes around 9 or 10am. The Moses basket has also been great to keep in the bathroom, since Abby will usually lay there content, whether awake or asleep, while I take a shower. She may fuss later in the day, but I am always amazed at how good she is, even from an early age, while the shower is running!

All of our babies have been given several nicknames, and Abigail is no exception. We typically refer to her as Abby, but Abs is common as well. For the first couple weeks, Don called her Peanut and I called her Sweetness. Donny called her Abby Apple because her tiny newborn head was the size of an apple!

Then I started calling her my Lovebug, and the name has evolved to include variations like Lovebuggy and LoveyBug. When she fusses, we call her Crabby Abby. And because Don and I spend are so familiar with Beachbody workouts, we occasionally give her fitness nicknames like HipHop Abs, Abra-gnome (named after the P90X2 Abrinome exercise), or my personal favorite, Ab Ripper X. Given her Ceserean birth, I think Ab Ripper is a very fitting name! Of course, she has also been called Lydia, Lyddie Bitty, or Lyds on (significantly) more than one occasion. I suggested early on that we recover from our confusion by calling her Li...ttle Abby. Whatever name we give her, it truly is a joy to now have two sweet little girls in our family!

The 5 pound, 9 ounce newborn who was lost in her car seat is now over 12 pounds and holds her head up with pride. In the last couple weeks, she has started to laugh when tickled - or sometimes, just when we talk to her. I love her when she laughs at me or Daddy with her big gummy grin. She isn't always happy, but her crying usually means that she is wet, tired, or possibly hungry, and some loving attention can generally remedy the situation. I am looking forward to watching her personality unfold as she grows, but for now, I am happy to enjoy every smile and coo of the beautiful Abigail Joy.