THIS BABY.

Sometimes that is all I can say. I hold him up and stare at him and show him to Mark: this baby. THIS BABY! He may be the most babiest of babies we’ve ever enjoyed.

It is hard to turn four months old for a baby who is born on Oct. 30th, because February only has 28 days. He managed though. Because, this baby!

I did a fourthmonthababy comparapic:

A month or so ago, I saw a picture of him that looked familiar and so I dug out one of my own baby pictures instead of the baby pictures of my other kids and did a side by side of both of us at two months old:

Yes, familiar!

So, I went ahead and did a four months one too!

Unfortunately, one thing this baby isn’t known for is sleeping without being held or in being put down in general, which makes it hard to write effusive blog posts about him (or any other blog posts at all). I jotted down the following notes in my notes app though…

He has more hair. Still blond. Sticks up. Twists heart. I’m trying not to miss anything. At same time, feel like I am missing things with my other kids—there are only so many hours in a day and I feel like I spend them on Tanner and my work mainly (poor Mark hardly rates on my “pay attention” scale at all!).

Alaina is still having a hard time with the adjustment/displacement, perhaps the hardest I’ve experienced with a kid. She can be relentless and exhausting and needy and also very intentionally push parental guilt buttons. She went with my mom to KS for four days recently to visit and I think the time and more focused attention was good for her. Speaking of heart-twisting though, watching her walk away in her little purple pants with her little skinny legs, I realized that I will never, personally spend four days alone with my four-year-old-daughter in my life. Feels sad.

My mom also crocheted her a mermaid tail!
Back to Tan-baby.

Has large levels of what we call: Intent to grab. This involves serious, devoted staring at an item, with spasmodic hand twitches towards it and a full-weight leaning body. ITG progressed over the last two weeks into actually grabbing and moderate reaching for things being handed to him, including skills in swiping/knocking things from counters, trying to chew laptop cords, and screeching with outrage when thwarted.

After having his neck and chest develop a horribly red, chapped, and chafed looking areas, I finally caved and started putting bibs on him to protect him from copious drool. I always feel kind of sad for babies wearing bibs for drool, like it is embarrassing somehow! He also super-freakishly chews own lips/tongue in a weird mouth movement that can only be seen to be believed (and he stops doing it as soon as you say anything or try to take a picture or video and instead smiles hugely).

Sleeps on me for naps and on my arm all night.

Rolls over both ways on 2/20. Plays Boo for first time on March 2—prior to this day, “boo’ing” was unamusing. March 2 produced laughter and kicks to keep playing the game.

We’ve been snowed in off and on for weeks. All hours filled with kids. Has been surprisingly “vacationish” feeling for a large part, with a sprinkle of oversaturation.

I’ve made myself feel sad in advance to see the easy intimacy and connection of my kids now at their wide age ranges because in my own experience with my much younger siblings, it totally ended (as do all life stages). Seems like this is how it will be “forever.”

He definitely tries to be one of kids—watches the “show” (but wants to be on or with me while watching).

My babies have all gotten propped up in pillow nests so this prompted another comparapic:

Boogerectomies are an ongoing issue. This baby has the most terrible booger problem of any baby I have ever known. We had to buy a special device on Amazon to extract them and it is miserable torture for us all, but his nasal passages actually get so occluded at times that he cannot breathe well enough to sleep or to nurse and then a traumatic boogerectomy is required.

He intentionally gives kisses by responding the word “kiiiiissssses!” with an open-mouthed dive at your cheek. Weighs 16 pounds according to step-on-step-off-step-on scale method. He also seems to be getting ready to sit up and will actually stay balanced in a sitting up position for a few seconds instead of immediately flopping over. He likes to hear Daddy play the guitar. And, he still seems to say “hi.” It is funny and startling, because you will look at him and say “hi” and he looks right at you and says “hi” back.

I feel like in the last month particularly we’ve really been watching him develop…how he is grabbing, reaching, noticing stuff. It feels like we are watching it as it actually happens for the first time. Mark and I both stood there looking at each other and at Tanner as we watched him purposefully reach out for something for the first time in his whole baby life. And, the entire family gathered around just a few days ago and watched him grab his feet for the first time when he was getting his diaper changed. I’m kind of surprised that we have time to watch him so intensely and pay so much attention to these changes. Is it because there are more witnesses than ever in the house? Is it because it feels like a treat to get to watch someone new’s development unfold one more time? I’m not sure, but I do know that he has more attention paid to each developmental milestone he reaches than any baby who has lived in our house before!

Tanner is now almost twice as old as he was when the three of us ventured off to class for the first time since his birth. Now, 8 weeks have passed and we successfully made it all the way through the session! The last week has been pretty stressful for me as I struggled to grade all the papers for both my classes as well as the final exams for the seated class, but I did it. Mainly like this:

We joke that he experiencing the world through eyebrows (in addition to mouthing things)…

What a most fabulous four-month old Tan Tan we have in our house!