Our sweet, quiet little girl has morphed into a squealing, screaming baby. Greta has discovered her voice and has been letting us all hear her loud and clear. She is also sitting up on her own and playing with her toys. She reaches for everything and we have to be super vigilant to keep her away from everything.

Laurel's language is absolutely exploding. She is finally successfully putting together sentences with more than just nouns! It is awesome to hold long conversations with her with only rarely having to resort to hand gestures and pointing. She is also learning to sing songs.

Both of the girls are at such fun stages and are really interacting with each other. Laurel loves to show off her "baby sisser, Geta May." And Greta thinks Laurel is the most hilarious thing she's ever seen (which may very well be true.)

Greta had her four month checkup today. Everything was great and despite the fact that I tried to warn her that the sweet nurse was going to stick her with a few needles, she was friendly and adorable, as always.

Now on to my favorite part, the stat comparison (I just realized Laurel must have had her 4 month check up a week or two early, whereas Greta had hers a little late, so the numbers aren't great to compare, but the curve makes the percentile comparison correct).

4 Months

Weight:

Greta - 14lb 14oz (75%)

Laurel -14lb 0oz (75%)

Length:

Greta - 25.75" (90%)

Laurel - 23.75" (45%)

Head Circumference:

Greta - 41.5 cm (60%)

Laurel - 41 cm (50%)

So once again, Greta still has a sizable (haha) lead on Laurel, especially in the length category! It doesn't surprise me, the kid's already outgrowing her 6 months clothing.

I wonder at what age the girls won't want me to post their weights in a public place, hmm...

I meant to write a blog post last night to let everyone know that Greta rolled from her stomach to her back yesterday morning, but apparently she knew I hadn't written it yet so she decided to show off a little bit more. This morning she rolled over from her back to her stomach at my mom's house!

Greta is such a fun and good-natured baby. She is still sleeping great (knock on wood!) and is very patient with all of Laurel's attention. She laughs out loud and offers adorable smiles to most everyone. We're so blessed to have such fun, happy girls!

I go back to work full-time on Monday. Let me ask you, how am I going to be able to leave these two precious girls? It will be hard, but I know they are in great hands with my mother and mother-in-law.

We took Greta to her two month well baby exam today (wow, I can't believe she's been here for two whole months!) Everything is going great with her and she's getting so big! The most fun things are her constant smile and coos. She is very social and likes to interact with everyone, especially daddy. While she likes Laurel, she's already smart enough to flinch when she comes at her too fast! She had three shots, which of course broke mommy's heart. Other than one ear-piercing shriek when the needles punctured her skin, she didn't cry at all. As soon as the shots were finished she nursed and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half. We'll pray she doesn't have any reactions to the shots.

Now the fun part, her growth stats vs. Laurel's at 2 months old.

2 Months

Weight:

Greta - 12lb 4oz (80%)

Laurel - 11lb 4oz (60%)

Length:

Greta - 23.5" (85%)

Laurel - 22.25" (50%)

Head Circumference:

Greta - 38.5 cm (45%)

Laurel - 38.8 cm (50%)

I really don't want to jinx it, but things are going smoothly! Laurel has been over the moon about her little sister, we just have to be vigilant in keeping that excitement contained and Greta safe from the exuberance. We've been extremely fortunate to have lots of help from my mom and mother-in-law in trying to keep Laurel on her normal schedule, especially with her afternoon nap.

Now, I sincerely don't think there is such a thing as a "bad" baby but Greta is absolutely wonderful. Tim and I laugh about it, but you seriously don't realize she's in the room most of the time unless she needs to eat. She is very contented and sleeps wonderfully! She loves to snuggle up on mine or Tim's chest and at night she will usually sleep for three to four hours at a time, wake up to eat and then go back to sleep within 20-30 minutes.

I keep asking myself if Laurel was that much more difficult or if I just feel a lot more prepared this time around. My mom says it is primarily just knowing what to expect (and that Laurel was also a very easy, laid-back baby). Also, Laurel and I had lots of breastfeeding problems at first (including double mastitis) and I had tons of tail bone pain for months after her delivery. All those things combined to make the first few weeks after her birth quite difficult. This time around we had a little bit of a bump in the road with nursing but after a day of moping that I was going to have to pump for a couple weeks I got some perspective that we'd have months, if not years, to have a great breastfeeding relationship.

One of the hardest things is not letting my temper get away from me when Laurel does act out. We're trying to make lots of special time for Laurel so that she doesn't start getting resentful of Greta, but it's really hard to carve out much extra time right now. Today was our first all-girl outing as I took Laurel and Greta to the playground. It went really well and I'm sure it's just the first of many, many outings!

Laurel was so excited to get to come see her baby sissy in the "pital." Her Nanny and Papaw bought her a special baby doll so that she could introduce us to her baby and her to our baby.

This is my incredible doula, Angie. She was incredible during the delivery.
Here's the first kiss between sisters. Laurel is crazy about Baby "Geta."
And finally here's a very tired but proud mama with her new baby girl.