Baby Blog: Four Months

Weight: 13 pounds, 13 ounces (more than double your birth weight at only 4 months!)
Length: 24 inches

Dear Babycakes,

Four months is where I like to describe the beginning of the end. You were never really a calm baby. Always wiggling, struggling, straining and squirming. Some times you were hard to even hold on to. So we knew when you went mobile we were all screwed. And we were right. Just thought it wouldn't be this soon.

I look back at the first three months of your life and laugh at how naive I was. I constantly stressed about you possibly being developmentally behind, that you wouldn't reach certain milestones and we would need to seek therapy and help. Little did I know that you would be holding our house hostage by six and a half months with your ability to get into EVERYTHING because you could crawl to, climb on and grab anything within reach. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

It all started here, in the fourth month, when you figured out how to roll over. We were excited! Rolling over meant no more worrying about you sleeping alone in your room as much. If you were able to roll over the risk of SIDS was considerably less and we could sleep a little easier knowing you would probably make it through another night (yes, mommy and daddy were a bit anxious, but we were new at this.) Rolling over to your back also meant that you could stop your own tummy time sessions, something you had loathed since the beginning. Within a week you were rolling front to back, back to front, no problem. This led to you rolling all over the floor and thus the constant watch began. We could not leave you alone for a second. Unassisted you would roll right out of a room. And the bed was absolutely off limits because you would roll right off. One time I put you in the middle of our bedroom floor, went into the bathroom to get my brush, walked out no more than five seconds later and you were out the door and almost to the stairs from rolling.

After that heart attack we began to find ways to contain you. Although your father was in favor of hog-tying you in the middle of the floor or at the very least keeping you swaddled until you turned eighteen, I wisely brought home a jumper. This magical piece of baby equipment became our saving grace. Need a shower? Put the baby in the jumper! Have to get those dishes done? In the jumper goes the baby! Need to run to the store? The jumper!  Okay, no, no we of course never did that, but if it wasn't illegal to leave you home alone I'm sure you wouldn't have minded because you LOVED your jumper. You would stay in it for hours if we let you, bouncing up and down and squealing. But due to my worries of hip dysplasia we kept your jumping to no more than twenty minutes at a time. Oh the things we could get done in twenty minutes, it was glorious! It was the greatest thing we ever bought...until two months later when you really became mobile and didn't want to be in anything because crawling, pulling up and hand walking the furniture was way more fun. You would scream if we even thought about putting you in anything. But again, I'm ahead of myself.

Four months is also when you could sit up unassisted when you were put into a seated position. First you used the Boppy as support but soon you didn't even need the pillow to sit on the floor. This new position was fascinating to you and I'm sure the world got a whole lot more interesting when you didn't have to stare at the ceiling all day. After sitting came falling forward and attempting to crawl, which was both incredible and terrifying. Luckily you still could only get your butt to wiggle up and down and would face plant most of the time. These are all things you showed off for your new pediatrician who declared you in perfect health and right on track for weight and height.

Overall you were and still are a very happy baby. You laughed all the time now, not just when tickled. The smallest thing could make you chuckle, a funny face, weird noises, but the big belly laughs only happened once or twice this early. And they were awesome! Nothing is better than a baby's big laugh. You also became interested in everything near you, especially phones. We quickly realized we could no longer hold a phone near you are you grabbed it. This made most pictures of you taken on cell phones blurry because we were constantly moving them out of your reach.

One of your favorite games was playing with the baby in the mirror. I would sit you on the floor in the bathroom in front of the mirrored closet doors and you would slap your hands on the mirror and laugh at your "friend." Baby babble would ensue and the two of you would have a mirrored moment of friendship. The kitties were also a new fascination. You started to notice them and realized how soft they were so you would grab for them when ever they walked by. I have to give them credit, the cats didn't shy away from you and would always mill around if we were all on the floor playing. It's really nice to see all our kids hanging out and getting along.

What more could I ask for?

Love, Mommy :)