Ah, four months...I love you and I strongly dislike you. I love you for the giggles and belly laughs. And the walking...oh the walking. The smiles and boyish grunts. But I strongly dislike you for the four month growth spurt/four month wakeful-ish behavior. Our normally happy little man is fussy and squirmy and back to fighting sleep. It had gotten better, good almost, a little after three months. And I knew that, unlike with Ella, we may not escape the terribleawfuldreadful four month wakeful this time around. You don't get that lucky twice. And lordhavemercy it hit us....him...hard.
I will say that at least he isn't waking up every three hours at night, yet. This has been going on for about two weeks and no middle of the night wakings so far. When he does wake up at night, he cries for a minute and goes back to sleep. That means I am still up, but whatever. We've had some early mornings where he eats and then falls back asleep. It's the daytime sleep and going to sleep for the night that are impossible. He just won't go the eff to sleep. And you want to know what's sad and hard to see? How tired he really is and how much he knows he needs to sleep, but his little brain is just firing too fast and there is just too much to see and learn for him to actually close his eyes and rest. He's gone as long as 4 hours without sleeping. FOUR freaking long hours with a grumpy baby and even grumpier toddler. A toddler who just wants to follow me around and whine in a mumble about how she wants me to hold her. Again, for the millionth time. {I would feel bad about not holding her except I figured out that she actually doesn't want to be held, she just wants to see how far she can get me to go}
The other night I left him to work it out on his own in the swing since after an hour of rocking and eating and shushing he still had not closed his eyes. I let him fuss for about 10 minutes and had enough so I went in to try again. Only to have him projectile vomit on me, the swing, the floor, everything as soon as I picked him up. He had worked himself into such a frenzy that everything he'd eaten came back up. That is sad.
Howeeeever, Daddy put him to sleep one night and he fussed for a couple of minutes in the swing and then was out until 7:30 in the morning. And all this no napping-fighting sleep happened just in time for Daddy to start a night shift. So Daddy isn't here to work whatever unfair magic he has over the boy.
But all the bad part of this stage aside....one night after fighting him for over an hour to get to sleep for the night, eating, rocking, in the swing, crying it out, when he finally fell asleep in my arms, I held onto him for far longer than necessary. He seemed most comfortable with his head laying on my shoulder and his body sideways against my stomach. His face looked so peaceful, so relaxed. Finally. And I couldn't stop staring at him. And rocking him. And kissing his little head. I reminded myself that this is my last baby. I wanted to take in every last feeling of how heavy he felt in my arms and how he filled them up now. How close his head was to my chin, close enough for me to stick my nose in his thinning hair and smell his baby shampoo. And in that moment it felt so good. His little sighs and sleepy smiles. And the love in my heart is what I try to think of when he is fussy and screaming and fighting me.
But on to the good stuff! He is still super smiley and loves when you say Boo! to him. He's taken a liking to Sophie the Giraffe but still loves his worm and lovies. We got a good belly laugh out of him (thanks to Tia) that just kept going. His fave spot is in his bouncy set grabbing at his feet. He's so close to getting them in his mouth and I just melt when he does it.
The 'hawk is getting thinner. He's definitely losing hair. It's on the left side of his head, which is the side he sleeps on, and the back. From all the twisting he does while asleep he gets these little balls of hair on the back of his head. I guess he'll be just like Ella and be on the move, even while asleep.
I am going to have to reassess the bathtub because he is a maniac when you give him a bath. He can sit up but still hasn't quite mastered the balance part and thrashes around. So he's too big for the newborn tub but not ready for the infant/toddler tub. And the kicking and splashing that soaks the wall, the floor and me? Yeah, gonna have to figure something out.
Foot grabbing plus the "look"
He did not want that sticker on. He just kept grabbing at it until is was all crinkled and torn.
So off it came!
His talking has become a very boyish grunt/screech. It was all babble, but right now he's working on seeing how loud he can get. He usually does it as soon as you let him stand up when he gets all excited. He absolutely loves to walk. That's right, walk. I don't know why, but apparently our kiddos are ready to go, like from birth. He was standing up on your lap and bouncing from leg to leg, but the other night he tried walking up me. As in one foot in front of the other. So I put him on the floor, held on to his hands and he walked around the living room. Over to his jumperoo, stopped by the TV and around the table.
We also discovered that he sighs in his sleep. Our AC broke and we spent the night at Sassy and Poppy's house. Sawyer slept in a room with Shaun and I. We were again reminded why he got moved to his room at 3 weeks. Kid is noisy! Neither of us slept much, but we did get to hear him take these deep breath sighs all through the night, every few minutes. As cute as it was, he'll be getting his own room in the future.
He's really trying to suck his thumb/hand and can just about get his thumb in his mouth most of the time. Ella kind of tried and then gave up, she was never a thumb sucker.
Aaaand standing. I looked and Ella was the same age when she could stand briefly in the chair and started practice walking. Look at those chubby legs!!
He's so big and just about grown out of his 6 month size clothes. There are a bunch of shirts where his arms barely fit through the arm holes. And his legs and arms are bigger than Ella's. I do realize, though, that is probably because he has baby chub and she doesn't, but still....she's almost 3!
