4 months

I know I say it every month my sweet boy, but another month has flown by in a blink of an eye. My little squishy blue eyed red hair boy is growing up. There is so much to document this month, I feel my mind is a scattered mess of little intimate details I so do not want to forget.

This month has brought about incredible change in you sweet boy. I have always loved you since you were born, but you have been pretty challenging these last few months! Your poor tummy bothered you all the time and it left me feeling help less as to how to make you feel better. You

tended to be fussy most of the day and weren't very content doing activities for longer than 5 minutes. I struggled with comparing you to other babies who were your age who seemed to be content going for long stroller rides and appeared to just loooooove tummy time. Lots of people kept telling me to just wait for 12 weeks, that things started to get better then. Imagine my disappointment when 12 weeks came and you were still just as fussy. Behind the pain that the reflux caused, I could see a sweet, happy baby that would emerge at moments. I would tell your daddy about how I could tell that once your reflux was done with, you would be so much happier. That time has come this month my sweet little one. It seriously happened overnight. Right around June 15th, you just started being calmer and much more content. I feel like I could jump to the moon, I am so excited. I feel like I have to pinch myself every day to make sure this really is the new norm. I know there will be future bumps in the road like teething, illnesses, etc., but seriously, you are such an amazing baby. The other day, nana and I took you in the stroller down to Barnes & Noble and to Old Navy and you did not make a peep the whole time. This may seem like a small feat, but you have NEVER lasted that long in the stroller. I still have to ride in the back seat of the car to keep you occupied, but for the last several car trips you have been SO content and haven't even fussed (the blue krinkle might have something to do with it). On your 4 month birthday, we took you down to sail sandpoint so dad and his buddy Ryan could do some sailing and you were SO content looking at boats, watching people, playing with toys. I kept telling Jayna over and over how wonderful it was and how excited it made me for future adventures with you. Honestly, it seems like the world has come alive to you. You are constantly turning your head to discover different sites, and will turn to hear different voices.

I also remember wondering around 13-14 weeks, what I was going to write about regarding changes that you've made this month. For a while, you were doing similar things like batting at toys and sucking on your hands, but weren't really adding any new skills. Then WHAM, you have just taken off. You now roll from your tummy to your back like you've known for months how to do it. I have a hard time getting you to do tummy time because in an instant you are over on your back. You are starting to push off with your hands to do a mini pushup.

You have started the stage of putting EVERYTHING in your mouth. Most activities are not enjoyable unless it involves something that you can put in your mouth to bite on. You are also discovering all the different things your lips, tongue, and mouth can do. You've started biting on your bottom lip, which we call your grandpa face. You also started doing raspberries with your lips out of the blue a week or so ago. You are also back to chatting up a storm, after taking a 2-3 week break. Probably our favorite time of day is when you wake up in the morning and you are staring at the ceiling making all sorts of noises.

You absolutely LOVE toys, especially rattles and objects that are easy to grasp. Your favorite toy is your green frog. You light up whenever I give him to you (usually I save it for car rides).You are also in love with the blue crinkle wrapping paper from dad's father's day gift, the 2 little bobble head toys, sophie the giraffe, and the monkey rattle. We also started putting you in the jumperoo this month. At first, you would just sit in the chair and look at the toys and now you jump, turn around in the seat to look at all the different toys, and talk SO much. You could sit in there for ever. Our new routine is for you to go in there while I eat breakfast in the morning. You usually turn around to face the back sliding glass door to look outside.

Some of your other favorite activities are reading books on your wedge, staring at mirrors at your cute face, and playing with your play gym.

You are getting so strong. You are able to sit unassisted for a few seconds before you start to lean over. We have worked a little bit on leaning you forward to rest your arms on your legs like a tripod, but it tends to make you spit up a little every time :) You love it when I pull you up from laying down holding your fingers, and you can also stand straight up for quite some time. Your grip is so strong- I have started to be more careful about dangling my hair in front of you because you are quick to grasp a handful in a blink of an eye. It's not uncommon to find my hair wrapped all around your little hands.

Guess what sweet boy? You are sleeping in your crib!! We kept putting it off, thinking that you would have a hard time transitioning from the bouncy chair to your crib because of your reflux, so it finally took your auntie giving mommy some tough love intervention where she basically said that it was time for you to not only transition to the crib, but also start learning how to fall asleep on your own. We were exhausting ourselves trying to get you to sleep every night - it was taking up to 2 hours of bouncing, singing, shushing, etc. I know you wont remember the crying my sweet boy, but it was so hard on mom and dad. It is amazing how ready you were for this change though- it only took 1 night of rough crying before you starting easing into this new way of going to sleep. In a matter of 1 day, you started sleeping SO much better at night. You've been getting up only once a night and usually sleep until about 6:30-6:45 every morning. So when you are older, thank your auntie for saving your mom and dad from pulling out their hair. I tried not doing the ergo anymore and just letting you nap 40 minutes, but you were really crabby, so I'm back to wearing you in the ergo after you wake up after 40 minutes. It works for us for now.

I can't wait to continue watching you grow and change. Your dad and I absolutely adore you my little boy.