4 months

little noah is less "little" all the time. we've already hit the 4 month mark and i find myself thinking "in another 8 months he'll be ONE!" and "we're already 1/3 of the way to his first birthday!" (this is what happens when you grow up with a mom who's an accountant). i find myself reveling in all the things he has learned to do, and looking forward to seeing all the progress he will continue to make in the coming weeks and months. he has already out-grown all 0-3 month clothes and now only wears 6 month stuff (he's too tall for anything else)! of course, like mothers everywhere, i also find myself looking back at his newborn pics and thinking about how tiny and sweet he was then and how he is already so different. how is it possible that he has already grown up so much? he changes so quickly, and i feel like i am scrambling to keep up with all his firsts, his milestones and progress. thank God for good cameras!

in the exersaucer

shortly after the last noah post we reached one such milestone: noah slept through the night, 10+ hours, on may 29th! i would like to say there was much celebrating (well, eventually there was), but i was at work and was really none the wiser until i got a near-frantic phone call from my doting husband. it's 4:30am, and my phone rings at work, i'm scared so i pick up:

"jes?"

"yah, honey, what's wrong?!"

"he hasn't woken up yet!"

"what? what do you mean?"

"i mean, he usually wakes up for his bottle at 1:30 or 2:00 but he's not awake yet! do you think he's okay?!"

"uhm....yes, it's okay for him to sleep that long, he'll wake up when he's hungry. i promise."

"do you think i should wake him?"

"NO. do not wake that baby."

"but is he okay? he had tylenol for his teeth at 9:30pm, would that make him too sleepy?"

"no, it's worn off by now, he's just being good and sleeping. whatever you do, don't wake that baby! if he's still asleep when i get home in the morning, *i* will wake him up and feed him. i promise."

"okay. ...are you sure he's okay?"

"is he breathing?"

"yes, i've checked on him, like, 5 times."

"then, yes, he's okay. go get some sleep, i'll see you in the morning."

have i mentioned how much i love my husband and what an awesome father he is? :)

since then, noah has done a pretty good job of sleeping through the night. there have been a couple nights where he will still wake up around 2:30am and want to eat again, but they are no longer the norm and are few and far between. the other thing noah has gotten really good at is turning over from front to back. he was already doing this when i wrote the last post, but now he does it so easily and readily that it's funny to watch because it no longer scares the living daylights out of him. the only downside? sometimes he will flip himself over at night and wake himself up....grrr. eventually this won't phase him, but for right now it's enough to startle him awake. usually it's an easy fix, though, where we just go in, turn him back over and he falls right back to sleep. phew!

as far as rolling the other direction, noah has only done it once, but when he's on his back he is continuously twisting and attempting the back-to-tummy roll. i'm sure he'll have it perfected very soon. noah also started teething this past month, which we were *not* ready for! but, true to his do-everything-early nature, he started drooling, fussing, running a low-grade temp and gnawing on his hands and anything else he could attempt to fit into his mouth. fortunately we had some infant tylenol on hand which helped and, even though we haven't seen any teeth yet, the symptoms seem to have abated a bit for now. i'm sure we'll be seeing more of the teething monster in the months to come...

enjoying the bumbo chair with monkey

activity-wise noah is getting stronger and stronger all the time. he now can sit fairly comfortably in the bumbo chair (although he still doesn't enjoy it for extended periods of time) and he was able to try out his exersaucer for the first time last week. i was scared he wouldn't like it, but to my surprise (and maybe his, too) he was absolutely fascinated! he played for several minutes before deciding he was too tired and ready for a nap. yay for a new activity! he also spends lots of his time playing on a blanket on the floor now so he has free range to scoot and roll as he pleases. we've acquired a few new toys (moosey, monkey and the jingle ball being the favorites) that noah is enjoying practicing his gross motor skills with. he now grabs onto a toy and immediately attempts to bring it to his mouth and chew the heck out of it. for the most part, he's pretty successful and it's really fun to watch him be so independent with his toys.

moosey and noah

his favorite new game is having any of this toys dangled a few feet above him then lowered onto his stomach and then tickling him with said toy. he always erupts in a fit of giggles which is absolutely fabulous...but i have yet to catch this on video as i can't figure out the right timing and how to coordinate toys, camera, etc. we also invested more in noah's library (which is fairly puny by my standards, so thank you half-price books!) and added some additional classics to the mix: the cat in the hat comes back; the very quiet cricket; go, dog. go!; and the giving tree have all been well received so far :)

as far as noah's social calendar this month: he was able to spend some time in the sun with some AKUC friends at the field day, he celebrated matt's first father's day, attended aunt sarah's baby shower, and has been recently seen cruising the city in our new family-size SUV as sole king of the backseat kingdom (for a while longer).

so. cool.

more pics here:

4 months

we visit the pediatrician on the 30th, so i'll update this post after we go!

******update******

the numbers are in! as of june 30th, noah is now

13 lbs, 4 oz (25th percentile),

25 inches long (55th percentile), and now has a

head circumference of 16 inches (15th percentile)!

the pediatrician was very impressed with noah's weight gain since he seems to have a pretty significant case of reflux. she increased his medication doseage since we had begun seeing some ugly symptoms start to appear again (which meant no more sleeping through the night and some pretty bad tummy aches the week before we went to the visit), and gave us the green light for solid foods. yay for noah! now i guess i get to start making baby food... just when i think i have it all figured out and down to a routine. i should really know better by now! ;)