Four Months, and Feelin' Fantastic

As we've approached four months, the changes in Mia have bordered on magical. She's been happier, goofier, more energetic, more aware, and loads more fun than ever before.

Among the accomplishments she's managed over the past month:

• giggling
• reacting to silly faces and voices
• discriminating between her parents and other adults
• discovering her hands
• inching forward on her belly
• pushing up onto her elbows
• rolling from belly to back
• reaching for objects at close range and eye-level
• surpassing 15 lbs (she weighed in at 15 lbs, 11 oz at a doctor's appointment two weeks ago)

As of today, she's now officially four months old, and she celebrated by managing a five-hour sleep shift overnight, sleeping in this morning, and logging five hours' worth of nap time during the day today. She finished off the evening joyfully leaping and bouncing in her jumper, reminding me that though it breaks my heart to see her growing so fast, the best is really yet to come, after all.

***

As for the "Month Pictures," I am absolutely thrilled with how the photo shoot went this morning. When it came time to upload pictures, I was astonished to see that I had taken only 33, but they all came out so well that it was still tough to pick favorites.

Things started out as usual. Mia was cooperative enough, but not smiling.

 

However, as I was in the midst of snapping pictures, Aunt Ali and Uncle Joe arrived for their weekend visit. I wasn't sure how Mia would react to our guests, since she's been a bit sensitive about going to new people, of late.

As it turns out, Mia took an instant liking to her Aunt Ali (they've met once or twice before, but it's doubtful that Mia remembers).

Can you tell?

We lost a bit of our giggly momentum when I changed up the animal companions a bit...

... but we won it back fairly quickly.

After a time, I seemed to be wearing Mia out, but I kept on shooting anyway, in the hopes of a capturing a couple more good pictures. I also was keen to try out the new lens that Nana sent along with Ali and Joe as a late birthday gift. These last few were taken with my Nikkor 50mm 1:1:8D AF lens.

As I struggled a bit with the manual focus, Mia started giving me subtle signs that she'd had enough.

I was a little too occupied to notice, at first.

"Mooooom..."

"Stop, already."

In this last shot, though, she could not be denied.

Happy Four Months, Mia! I'm so excited for what's to come.