Four Month Update

Dear Samantha,

You turned four months old today and this will undoubtedly go down in our family history as the month of The Great Spit Up. Or, to be more precise, the spit down the back of our shirts, across our laps, on each of the 50 some bibs we own, all over the carpet… basically on everything and everyone besides Lana and Rico, who were wise enough to steer clear. It was a strange development given that for the first three months of your life we barely even needed a burp cloth, much less a tarp. It was also incredibly stressful to watch you go from a happy, content baby focused on learning to use your hands and trying to rollover to a miserable fountain of spit up caught in an endless cycle of eating, retching, and crying.

Your pediatrician diagnosed you with acid reflux and we began administering twice daily doses of Zantac. For another week we saw almost no improvement so I started contemplating radical diet changes including the elimination of all dairy products (the HORROR!). Luckily, the medicine kicked in on day number six and I got my happy baby back without having to sacrifice my love of cheese and ice cream.

Once you returned to us from the spit up-induced funk, you began testing your voice through increasingly loud babbling and squeals. You were eager to join in conversations and your father and I spent more than a few dinners caught in the crossfire between your squeals and Lana’s continuous stream of stories about the latest episode of Diego or the new Barbie and the Mermaid toy on television. I guess that’s what we can expect from dinners for years to come -- a cacophony of girl talk that ends only when you both become surly teenagers with no interest in speaking to us.



Your other main interest this month was the continued decimation of your poor little head. You rubbed it back and forth across your crib mattress, car seat, floor, etc., until the only hair that remained was a couple small patches at the base of your skull and the very top of your head. The sides of your head were often covered in scratches from where you clawed at yourself with those little fingernails that I can‘t seem to keep cut short enough. In fact, you tore at yourself so much this month that your father and I began calling you “Lady Gouga.” (I sincerely hope you won’t get that reference by the time you’re old enough to read this).

Head injuries aside, we ended the month in much better shape than we began it. I’ve spent a ton of time bragging about what an easy baby you are, so this may well have been the Universe telling me, “Don’t get cocky, woman.” I’m sure we’ll have more bumps in the road to come, but we’ll get through them as a family. A family that wouldn’t be the same without you, my precious Samantha.

Love,
Mama