It is hard to believe Claire is already 4 months! She really started changing right around 3 months and suddenly she is a “big baby.”

When she was first born I remember going to the pediatrician’s office and looking at all the other babies in the waiting room and thinking I couldn’t imagine Claire getting so big. I still have no idea what she will look like as a little girl but she is definitely a cute, Big Baby now!

Like thank you note writing, I have continually waited for the right moment to blog/journal about baby Claire. I envision myself sitting at Starbucks, reflectively writing the rest of my baby thank you notes and then writing thorough blog posts capturing her every move for the past 4 months. Since that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon, I am trying to move forward with snippets of writing at imperfect times while everything is still more all over the place than I would like (as I type this on my phone).

A brief overview of the past 4 months

Claire the cute little chipmunk is turning into Claire the cute little munchkin. Michael has had some very clever and quite cute nicknames for her, which so far have included:

• Claire bear: this was her designated nickname even before she was conceived. This one will definitely stick!
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions (this was in the very early baby days…I guess if you compare photos there might be a slight resemblance)
• Vladimir Poot-in (generally at the changing station. Can you tell politico is a strong interest?)
• My little pumpkin seed (the latest, and cutest, for fall)

I started calling her my little bug (sometimes love bug) somewhere along the line, because when I held her she was curled up like a little bug. I now get why people call their kids little monkeys and other cute animal names.

Claire has been sleeping next to our bed in an awesome bassinet my parents gave us that swivels and turns and does all kinds of fancy things. The sleep deprivation until about 8 weeks was a real struggle, but I was fortunate to find an awesome baby sleep class called Will I Ever Sleep Again?. We went right around 8 weeks and that class was life changing. Claire started sleeping through the night right around 8 weeks and I couldn’t have been more proud or relieved. That class also taught me to be much more relaxed about her baby schedule and to focus more on enjoying the moment rather than being disappointed in the fact that I didn’t give birth to a clock.

She rolled over way earlier than I ever would have expected, around 2 months. And shortly after that she rolled from back to front. She is now known to just keep rolling away if you let her.

Claire has been smiling, laughing, and making sweet baby noises since the first few weeks. She smiles at me when I get her from her bassinet in the mornings – it is very sweet! She also has had a distinct “eyebrow wrinkled / figuring something out” look pretty much since the hospital that I think I made way too much when I was pregnant, so I’m taking the credit for that one.

Claire has recently started sitting up sort of on her own and can definitely hold her head up on her own. As a person with virtually no baby experience, it was hard to get adjusted to not having to support her head. I think we are all getting more used to each other as she grows and it is really nice.

She has had plenty of visits from family & friends and we have more photos and video clips than I know what to do with, that I desperately want to organize into a photo book and share here. For now, here are some adorable photos taken by Claire’s newest friend, Annie (not me, another Annie). We were fortunate to find another Annie to help us with Claire and other things while we work to make everything in life more awesome. Fortunately for us, Annie has so many talents on top of being an awesome daytime companion for Claire, including photography (and it wasn’t me who jazzed up our chalkboard sign). Here you go – our Big Baby Claire at 4 months!