Thursday, August 1, 2013

Happy Four Months: A Letter to Arlo

Dear Arlo,

You're four months old today, and you've become the happiest baby in the world. If you're awake, there's a 90% chance you're smiling—and it takes no effort whatsoever to make you grin. You find your grammy especially hilarious, and you've done most of your greatest belly laughs at her house. My favorite thing you do is throw your head back when you're laughing; sheer joy! I wish I could explain to you how magical your laughter is to the three of us. When you laugh, we all crack up and look at each other, and usually—even still—we have tears in our eyes. You make us so happy.

I always tell your daddy that the universe made you extra smiley to make up for the fact that you don't sleep at night. You wake up several times every night, and I hope next month's letter is all about how you've become a wonderful little sleeper. I've done a lot of research on sleep, and at this point, it might be time to let you "cry it out"—but we tried that for about 30 seconds the night before last, and I just couldn't follow through with it. You have to know that your parents will always be there for you, and letting you scream bloody murder in your crib isn't a good demonstration of this. I promise to rock and "shhh" you back to sleep for as long as you need me to, no matter how dead tired I know I'll be at work the next day. I'm your mommy.

We started feeding you oatmeal, in hopes that it would fill your tummy and help you sleep better at night, but it's definitely not helping. As cute as it is to watch you go after the food on your little spoon, we may take an oatmeal break until you're six months old or so, because it's just one more thing on our to-do list right now, and you don't need anything other than breast milk and formula yet.

You're the most perfect size right now—big enough that I don't feel like I'm going to rip your pinkies off when I'm dressing you, and small enough to still feel like a tiny baby in my arms. I'm excited to find out your height and weight at your doctor's appointment on Monday. I know you're growing like a weed because we already have a giant overflowing box of cute little clothes you've outgrown.

I haven't wanted to take my eyes off you since the moment you were born, but now, you're getting a lot more exciting to watch. You're always doing something with those wild limbs of yours. When you're in your jumperoo, you can touch the floor with one foot, so you're this close to being able to jump around in that thing—and I can't wait. You like grabbing the toys on your jumperoo, too, even though you can't reach them very well yet.

You can reach the toys on your bouncy seat, and you go crazy when you're in that thing! Sometimes, you have all 4 limbs wrapped around a hanging toy, and it's adorable. Another one of my favorite things you do is crank your leg (always your right leg!) in a bicycling motion to make your bouncy seat rock. How on earth did you discover that?

You still stick everything you can get your hands on right into your mouth. If you don't have access to anything, you put your hand in your mouth. We tried to give you a pacifier to prevent this, but you weren't having it. It's pretty hilarious to watch you try to gnaw on your entire fist anyway.

I love your baby voice so much. Your babbles are getting louder and more polysyllabic, and while you still babble mostly in vowels, you've added "ghee," "ma," "bee," and "caw" to your list of sounds. We're excited to see what you come up with next.

I'm too tired to think of a sweet closing paragraph. Just know that you make life so much better, and every night, I look forward to our tomorrow.

Love,
Mommy


Couldn't pick just one photo this month.

2 comments:

Emmett Katherine said...

that last photo! tavi isn't at the 4 month mark yet but i've noticed this week she is just smiling non-stop, sometimes even when she's crying! You described the 4 month size perfectly, still small but not super fragile :) fingers crossed Arlo sleeps through the night soon.

Nicole said...

I love that last picture. And I am glad I am not the only one who worries about those tiny pinkies when dressing him. : )