High Five, Sammy!

Mr. Sam-pants has reached another month milestone.  He's got five of 'em under his belt now.  Here's a little recap of what that means for Sam this time:

• He loves to jump - in his doorway jumperoo thing or in someone's arms, if he's in an upright position, you can bet his little legs are a goin' and he's jumping like crazy.  I laughed the other day because my fitbit buzzed that I had reached my daily step goal while he was bouncing in my arms.
• He drinks from a bottle - again.  We hadn't tried (or needed to try) the bottle since the beginning of December, and when the doctor mentioned at his four month appointment that he might need to start on formula if his weight continued to slow, we decided to be proactive and try again.  He wast not a fan for a few days (weeks? who can remember?), but finally one night, with the help distraction of a Kobe Bryant interview on TV, Gregg was able to get him to down 4 ounces of formula (and then he slept 5 hours straight! - that hadn't happened in a long while!).  Since then, he's been getting more and more used to taking a feeding a day from the bottle and currently doesn't even need to be staring at the TV or Christmas lights to do so.
• He has gained 1 lb 4 oz since his appointment one month ago.  He's now up to 15 lbs 5 oz and the doctor was pleased with this progress and basically said to just keep doin' what we're doin' 'cause it's workin'.  So I guess the bedtime bottle stays.
• He's still eating every 2-3 hours - 'round the clock lately, which is hard for his mother's sanity. (What I wouldn't give for a four hour stretch again!  Pretty please?!)  
• (In other news, the four month sleep regression is real, people.  Real ugly.)
• He no longer sleeps swaddled, which maybe has something to do with the frequent wakings?  I don't know.  But we found him on his belly, still swaddled, and unable to get back over to his back, so that ended that.  We were suckered into buying the $40 "Baby Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit", which is supposed to work miracles in terms of baby's sleep ("My baby was waking every hour and then with the magic sleep suit slept 12 hours straight the first night!" - said pretty much every review on Amazon).  Nobody seemed to tell Sam that, though.  Because, like I said in the bullet above this, his sleep has been lacking as of late.  BUT, he is sleeping (even if for short periods) in his crib, without being swaddled.  So I guess that's miracle enough for me.
• His naps are sort of hit or miss, but slowly turning into a somewhat predictable schedule.  He seems to normally want one about an hour to hour and half after waking up, which lasts usually about 45 minutes to an hour.  Then around 11 he'll conk off in the car seat for about a half hour (we're usually at library or music makers or running errands at this time, but if we're home, he'll still nap around then and only for a half hour, too).  Then he's down again around the time Cal is (Hallelujah!) and some days those afternoon naps can be doozies of an hour and a half to two hours even (like today, for example - two plus hours and going strong - what!?).  Then comes late afternoon/evening.  He usually needs one more before bedtime (we tried just bumping up the bedtime, but that did not go over well).  So, at the worst time of day for me, I try to juggle getting dinner ready and Sam to sleep for one more little catnap of a half hour.  After 5 o'clock, though?  It's kind of a joke.  He's usually showing tired signs around 6:30 so we start the bedtime routine and he's asleep in our arms by 7 but lately has refused to stay in his crib, so we end up holding him or trying to get him back down (depends on how much we feel like fighting him on any given day; usually the answer is little), feeding him a bottle or nursing him every 1-2 hours (the hope is that he'll be so full he'll give us a good, long stretch; the reality is much less promising) until we go to bed at 10. 
• (Whew!  Who knew I could write so much about sleep?  Especially from our "amazing sleeper"?  Let's move on, shall we?)
• We tried feeding him a taste or two of oatmeal a few weeks ago.  He wasn't a huge fan.  (Shocker!)  I haven't pushed it.  We'll probably ramp up the solids more in this coming month.  He has started watching our forks and making sucking mouth motions while eyeing our dinners, so there seems to be some interest at last.
• He still flips over to his tummy and does the parachuter maneuver (with head, arms and legs all up, and legs a kickin') almost constantly.  Wears me out just watching him.  He has rolled from his tummy to his back once (yesterday!), but I think it was mostly an accident.  He pushes up on his arms and scoots and pivots himself around, so I guess you could say he's officially "mobile".  (It's not very productive or efficient, but he does move.)  (Here's a video where we tried to capture what his "swimming frog" motion looks like when propped up off the ground a bit - the video didn't get some of his best arm-leg-combo maneuvers, but you will see a bit of that pushing/pivoting and the parachuter, plus you'll also see some craziness of our house in the evening hours - read: sister zooming/jumping around the room - so that's a bonus?)
• Sam adores his big sister.  He always watches what she's doing and will give her the biggest smiles and shrieks if she so much as looks his way.  He'll giggle at her as she runs around the room past him.
• He found his feet!  I love watching him roll up into a ball to grab his toes and shove them in his mouth (sock on or off, it doesn't seem to matter).
• He gives me really great open-mouth, slobber-face "kisses" during burping time mid-feed.  He'll even lick or suck on my cheek or chin.  I love it.
• He can put the bink back in his mouth all by himself, though it is not always in the correct orientation.  He can also pass it (or a toy) back and forth between his hands.
• He is still a talker/shrieker/purrer, always making some cute, happy noise while he lays in his bouncer or on the floor.
• Sam wears size three diapers and is wearing more and more 6-9 month clothes (some 3-6 still fits, but more of those are ending up in the "too small" pile, being replaced with the next size up).
• He loves the bouncer seat still and will sit in it contentedly for a good while as I work on dinner or help Callie with whatever she needs.  He's still so patient and I'm so lucky!  Lately he pushes on the dangling toy bar above him and kicks it right off the seat to the floor.  Callie is very helpful to put it back on for him, time and time again.
• He also loves to sit up - by himself!  He can balance pretty dang well in the tripod for a few seconds at a time, but sometimes he'll even sit up taller and balance that way for a bit, too.  Some strong core muscles and fantastic head control on this little fella!
• He smiles when I play pat-a-cake or this little piggy.  He'll giggle and grin when we play peek-a-boo, too.
• He's always had a boogery nose; from day one.  But it seemed to get worse (think smearing down his face - gross!) when we all had a cold the first week of February.  His first cold, too, perhaps?  Luckily he didn't have any other symptoms and seemed to get over it pretty quickly.
• Sammy is still the smiliest, slobberiest little guy.  We are all in love with this little lug nut!

And yes, I do have pictures (speaking of which, I have been trying to "practice" again with my big DSLR camera because I haven't used it much lately; so a lot of these are a little off in color or focus or what-have-you, but I will include them despite all that, even if they're not perfect, because the subject matter is perfect - to me, anyway):

Smiling Sam, that's my boy!
(Alternate title: Slobbery Sam, that's my boy!)

Future cheerleader here?
"Wahoo for being five months!"
"Whatever, Mom."

Moral of the story of the last few pics:
don't schedule monthly photo shoot for
right before nap time!

Not part of the official photo shoot, but I just
had to include these because they show how he
pushes and kicks that toy bar off his seat.
Constantly.)

Watch Samuel grow: 4 months | 3 months | 2 months | birth