Keeping up

Baseball is finally ovah!  Oh...it's been a while, so I have to go back to catch you all up....  Keith's league team won the Loser's Bracket (CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP, I mean).  Then Keith got chosen to play on one of the Town's Tournament teams again.  Last year, John managed the team, and they had a ball.  This year, another manager took it on, but John still assisted.  And...it wasn't nearly as much fun.  We won't go into the hows or whys here, but hey, baseball aside, John and Keith did at least make a few new friends.  And well, they lost the other night to the #1 seeded team, so it's finally DONE.  Yay!  And that's all I'm going to say about THAT!

We are pinching pennies here to save up for our summer vacation and to hopefully get the house connected to the sewer.  Another summer of finding all the cheap and FREE things to do around town!  Mooching off folks who have pools and are willing to invite us over in the extreme heat.  Trying to set up playdates.  Reading a LOT.  Dragging out the battery-operated pottery wheel bday gift and NOT managing to make a pot (As feared by Mom who almost stuck it in the garage sale.  Ah well--pinch pots are fun, too!) 

Little Sophie is now 4 months old and trying very hard to crawl when we put her on the floor.  At her appointment, she weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds, 12 ounces.  The doc is thrilled.  They measured her at 23 inches, but I watched the nurse and double checked after she left and made sure the doc knew that it was NOT accurate.  I'm guessing she's at least 24 1/2 to 25 inches.  Anyway, Sophie is still a little peanut, but she's pretty normal now for a Q baby.  And finally fitting into her 3-6 mos clothes.  Yay!

My neighbor took some some 4 mos pics of Sophie, but I haven't gotten the proofs yet.  Can't wait to see them.

Um, and I never sent out birth announcements.  Parenting magazine assures me that in this electronic age that was OK.  But yes, I do realize I should have at least gotten her hospital pictures out.  Poor fourth child!  In a busy house of three very active older children!  So, I guess folks will be getting hospital pictures AND 4 mos pictures at the same time.  *sigh*  It is what it is.

Oh!  Did I tell you that now Izzy has joined Mary's swim team?  She's is doing so, so well.  Her best stroke is the butterfly.  It's so wild to see this little thing keeping up so well with some of the older kids with whom she's been swimming.  Mary admittedly was a little bummed.  "Swimming was supposed to be MY thing."  Oh, honey.  So tough having siblings who can do the same things as you.  (She's being a good sport, for the most part.)

Sophie stopped sleeping through the night two weeks after she started.  The only thing I can think of is that she's been showing signs of teething (LOTS of drool, chomping on her toys, tugging at her ears), and perhaps that's helping wake her up.  2:30 is the magic time when she usually wakes up.  The doc suggested I try to let her start crying it out a little and soothe her without feeding her.  But the crib is in our room so it's kind of hard to let her cry it out for very long.  Right now I think that John and I getting some decent sleep is sort of winning over whether or not I am nursing her in the middle of the night.  She started cereal last week.  So far...not the biggest fan.

4 months-ish