4 Months Old! (And some recent pictures, too!)

I feel like over this past month Nathan has lost any newborn quality he had.  He has grown up so much.  I feel like saying he's no longer a baby...but of course, he is.

At four months old, Nathan weighs 18 lb 5 oz.  He easily wears his 9-12 months clothes and I'm squeezing him into size 2 disposables until my box is finished.  His once-blue eyes are slowly changing to a blue-gray-brown colour.

Nathan has discovered toys.  If you hold out a toy to him he's able to bring his hands together to grab it from you, and then tries to bring it to his mouth.  The toys hanging on his playmat get hit at, pulled on, and sucked.  He loves his playmat still.  Nathan also loves his exersaucer.  He's getting the hang of those toys, and has started jumping in it.  This past month, Nathan was also introduced to the jolly jumper, which he also loves.  It only took a couple times before he mastered the art of rhythmic jumping.  I don't think he jumps as well as Matthew did, but definitely better than Kayla!  It's nice having different stations/activities for him to do, because he's not content to just be left anywhere, and I can't possibly play with him all the time.

Nathan has fallen deeply in love with me.  He doesn't show strange to others, but he definitely loves me the most.  Even if Jon is holding him at night, he will often just ignore Jon and stare at me.  I love it.  He also loves Matthew and Kayla, watching their every move.  Matthew and Kayla also love him.  Yesterday, I caught them piling tons of stuffed animals on him while I was busy cleaning our shower.  When I saw it I freaked out, and when I removed them from Nathan's head he was smiling.  Kayla has really taken an interest in Nathan this past month.  She talks to him and likes to try and carry him.

He still loves to suck on his thumb/a finger/all fingers/whole fist all day long.  He gags himself every other day because he's shoved a finger too far in his mouth.

I'd say he's getting better at lasting longer than two hours between feeds during the day, but he seldom goes longer than three hours.  He likes to hold the pinky and thumb of my bottle feeding (right) hand while drinking his bottle.

Nathan loves to hear his own voice.  He started 'talking' on February 5th (3.5 months old), and hasn't stopped.  I call it 'squaking'.  It's pretty funny.  Matthew has picked up on me calling Nathan 'noisy boy' when Nathan's talking a lot, and so you'll often hear Matthew referring to Nathan as 'noisy boy' too.  I think I had a giggle from him on February 15th, but haven't really heard it since to I'm not sure.

Although Nathan has rolled twice now, I think it was more a coincidence now because it's not something he's doing daily.

Nathan's sleeping habits have definitely regressed over the past month.  He was down to only one bottle during the night, but for the past month it's been two bottles a night.  I would love for him to at least drop one feed during the night.  Especially since I don't like to go to bed early and so I'm often only getting six hours of sleep a night.

Anyways, Nathan (as well as Matthew and Kayla, of course) is still such a blessing to us.  So often I find myself just smiling at him while he's staring up at me, just thinking how incredibly lucky we are to have him.  He survived being grown in the petri dish to be a day five embryo when the others didn't...and then he survived being frozen for two and a half years and then thawed and implanted.  He's such a miracle.

And...some pictures from Jan 18-Feb 18:

Nathan's first time in the exersaucer.

Matthew and Kayla's very first shower.

Nathan's first time in the jolly jumper.