Flourish Grace: Happy 4 Month Birthday Liam

Dear Liam,

Today you are 4 months old. I have been looking forward to this “birthday” since the day you were born because i knew we would share this day together, your 4th month and my 25th year. A short time into this month i had the feeling i would sit down to write this months letter and not have much to say. I thought you would be doing a lot of the same things as last month just better or more often but boy was i wrong!

This month you went out and saw snow for the first time. It was so bright outside you had to squint your eyes until we went in the shade, to get some pictures of course. I feel like all we did this month was watch snow fall out the window. Mama is so excited for spring to come next month!

You watched your first superbowl this month. Even though we lost we still had a fun night.

You also celebrated your first Valentine’s Day. You got an Elmo book, two lady bug teethers, and a cute outfit from Mommy and Daddy.

This month was also both Mama and Papa’s birthday! You were a helper blowing out the candles!

You love to be heard! You talk all the time and have learned a few new sounds this month. Your new favorite it to make fishy lips and say boo boo boo. You also learned to belly laugh and it is infectious! I think i like making you belly laugh even more than smiling. You love to laugh at getting lots of kisses or raspberries on your belly or when your Daddy pumps your legs to make you look like you are running fast.

Last month your favorite thing to do was sit up because laying down was for babies well this month your favorite thing to do it stand! You are four months old but love to try to walk.

You started to LOVE your doorway jumper this mouth. This past week you really got the hang of it and love to jump in circle while squealing in joy.

You are very close to sitting by yourself these days. You can do it for a few seconds by yourself but then fall over because you are grabbing for your toes or toys. This is all the support you need.

This month you really gained control of using your hands and developing your hand eye coordination. Anything that we show you you reach out and grab for! You also grab a hold of everything and put it right in your mouth. You love your Sophie, she now comes on every outing with us. This past weekend we went to Lowes and i looked down at you in your car seat and you had picked her up, turned her around and had her whole leg in your mouth…happily chomping on her.

You also started to really play in your exersaucer. You love the green, yellow, and blue rollers and the sun. It is so cute to watch you and see the concentration in your eyes when you are playing. You remind me a lot of your Dad when he is playing a strategy game.

At the beginning of the month tummy time was getting much easier. You learned to push up on your arms very well and would tolerate it for longer periods of time. Until you learned to roll over! Now when you get frustrated or don’t feel like doing tummy time you just roll yourself right over. Something you learned to do this month and absolutely love is to roll on your side. If i lay you down on your back you almost always roll onto your side and happily such on your pointer and middle fingers or hug your teddy. You have been very close to rolling from your back to belly for weeks and finally did it last week. Since then you have been doing it all the time! Whenever you have a lot of energy i just lay you down and you roll around while laughing, talking, and smiling up a storm.

The past two days you have gotten up on your hands and knees … child, you better not be crawling when i write your letter next month! It is amazing how you can move yourself around. Often times i will put you down and go to wash bottle or something I come back and you are facing the totally opposite direction….the power of wanting a certain toy.

This month you started accessorizing….you have to wear a bid all day everyday and can easily soak through 2 a day because you droll like crazy! Everything you grab a hold of gets soaked and if anyone is holding you they will end up with at least four huge wet stops on their shirts. You have your fingers in your mouth all the time and often pull them out to grab my face, you also love to grab hair. We like to refer to you as a spider because there is always a stream of droll coming from your mouth connecting to the surface below you.

We also let your try rice cereal this month. It is a bit of an understatement to say you loved it! There have been a few times that you have cried and cried at your bottle until i give you cereal and then you give me the biggest rice cereal filled smile.

You love to go for walks, around the house, in your stroller. I cannot wait until the weather warms up so we can walk around the neighborhood.

Our typically night time routine is a bath every other night, which you love, then a warm towel and jammies fresh from the drier followed by your last bottle and bed time around 9pm. You usually wake up 2-4 times a night but only need your paci to fall back to sleep. We get up around 7:15 every morning and you have a 6oz bottle and then play time! You have so much energy in the morning and are so happy; the doorway jumper has been your favorite morning activity lately.

You love to eat and are eating upwards of 36oz a day. You are wearing size 2 diapers and still fit into your 3 month sleepers but we have had to move up to your 6mo onesies; the three month still fit but they are a struggle to get on. On Wednesday you had your 4 month well baby check up and weighted 15.4 pounds and are 24.75 inches long!!!

We took A LOT of pictures this month, here are some of my favorites.