Latest photos

I realized I have a bunch of random photos to post so here they are. It is finally starting to warm up here so we are resuming our daily walk, feels so good to get out of the house. Also, Grandma Lisa is arriving this evening for a 2 week visit-woo hoo!!

thumb sucking has begun!

sleepy baby

bought some cute bandana bibs to catch the drool

Chatty Henry

Henry speaks from Kathryn Rodrigues on Vimeo.

Here's a clip of Henry "talking", his new favorite activity. You may notice he takes a potty break in the middle, haha.

4 month stats

Henry's 4 month check-up was last Thursday. He is nearly 26 inches and 13 lbs! I was so surprised he didn't weigh more, he feels so heavy in my arms now. But the pediatrician said his growth is looking good so we're happy with that. He had another round of vaccines and was a total champ, he freaked out for a minute but I was able to nurse him in the exam room so all was well after that.

This past month (especially the last 2 weeks) has brought tons of new developments with Henry, here's a few things about him him at this stage:

• Started to roll over!
• Loves reaching out and grabbing toys (and sometimes our hands) and putting them in his mouth (especially the wooden rings on the activity mat and the owl/owl book that has lots of different textures)
• The skip hop activity mirror has been the best incentive to get him to roll over, he loves looking at himself and trying to reach the little birds on it
• Getting really good at tummy time, especially post roll over
• Making all sort of new noises and expressions so we have lots of "conversations"
• Very alert and aware of his surroundings and subsequently really distracted when I'm trying to feed him
• Give us really fun giggles 
• Sleep has been rough, his little body is so busy all the time it's hard for him to wind down but I'm hopefully things are looking up, his naps are gradually getting longer and he isn't waking up as much at night

4 months!

Henry is 4 months old today! We have our check up tomorrow so I'll write another post with all of his stats. I'm dying to see how much this kid weighs, he feels so big to me!

Mini Matt

I thought it would be fun to dress Henry up like his Dad, Matt tends to have a uniform of sorts that involves jeans (sometimes grey), a hoodie, and a black t-shirt. Here's Henry's version, the jeans are huge on him but I couldn't resist! Also, the onesie is from our friend Ryan and is from the horror movie The Evil Dead, something they both enjoy but not up my ally:)

Sleep regression

Henry has been on a mission to roll over for the past week and he finally did yesterday!! On an unrelated note, he also cried his first actual tears. Usually his eyes just get watery but a couple of drops escaped, poor guy. With all of these new changes going on, he's also been going through a classic sleep regression which has been really tough. He was doing so well and now all of a sudden his naps are minimal, (unless I'm holding him) and is way more fussy in general. Luckily I know this is just a phase and he'll grow out of it soon. I thought this was a good description of what goes on during these developmental milestones. It certainly made me feel a lot better!

Your baby is also going through enormous developmental spurts that you can't see, because they're dealing with cognitive processes. They work through these spurts the same way they work through the physical spurts, but when your baby is practicing recognizing patterns, you can't see that. Leading up to the actual new skill the baby is going to go through several weeks of intense brain work and prep that you can't necessarily see (unless you know specifically what to look for). One of the side effects of this brain work is that they don't sleep as well as they do during times in which they're not about to master a new skill. They may seem restless in the night (like they do sometimes when mastering a physical skill) but it's just nothing you can see and label. So we call it a sleep regression.

Once a baby has learned the new skill, s/he will often sleep through the entire night for 1-3 nights after mastering the skill. Which is freaky from the parents' perspective, because you go from waking 10 times one night to sleeping 12 hours the next. But it makes complete sense if you know that the baby was working on this really tough challenge and couldn't help but wake up so often (in fact it's probably a miracle that the baby could even fall asleep in the first place with so much going on in the noggin), and then once they've got it they relax and sleep it off for a couple of days, like sleeping off a crazy party. Then they'll most likely go back to sleeping the way they were before they started working on the new developmental skill.