Finn is four months, and some videos

I took Finn in for his four month check up yesterday. He is a big giant baby, so I was pretty surprised when he only weighed 16 lbs 13 oz. Which is still in the 75% for his age, but at two months he was over the 95th percentile for weight, so I was thinking he would still be around there. Of course, T and Nora both had a big percentage drop about this age, so I guess it's par for the course. His height remained way off the charts, he's 28 1/4 inches currently. For reference, at SIX months T was 17 lbs and 27.5 inches and Nora was only 15.5 lbs and 25.5 inches. Four-month-old Finn only weighs 5 ounces less than our one-year-old Nora did.

A week or so ago he pretty much forced us to sleep train him. He wouldn't go to sleep nursing or rocking like he usually did one night, so finally I just put him down in his bed and he went right to sleep. Since then he pretty much won't go to sleep until we put him in bed. He will still usually fuss and cry a bit, but then goes off to sleep after five or ten minutes. And just a few days ago he started turning onto his belly to sleep, so we are finally getting some rest around here.

Teresa loves taking care of Finn, and trying to make him laugh. She's finally starting to figure out that he responds a lot better to her affections if she doesn't overwhelm him by getting completely up in his face. They were both having a lot of fun in these videos.





Five points if you can tell why I said "Seriously?". I had to stop the recording because I was laughing too much.

He recently started making lots of cute little noises.

It's a little hard to work the phone camera and tickle a baby at the same time.

He is so ready to be hitting some more milestones - he is always straining to sit up, and he gets so excited trying to grab for toys and stuff. His hands are still pretty clumsy, but he is getting there. Poor fellow has eczema, mostly on his legs and arms, and his poor little head, too, he has been scratching at his scalp a lot the past few days. Couple that with a thrush diagnosis from the doctor yesterday and we are pretty much constantly rubbing lotion or hydrocortisone cream on him or dosing him with nystatin (four times a day!). He is a bit more work than I was hoping for a third baby, but we love him so much, we don't mind.

He is very interested in anything we are eating. He perks up when he sees someone eating something, and if you are holding him he with start swiping for it. He'll have to be patient just a little bit longer. The girls are very, very excited for him to start eating stuff besides milk, so they can feed him. We've attempted bottles of pumped milk two times, but he has absolutely zero interest in them, and the girls were quite disappointed by that.

He loves to suck on his hands, and is always trying to cram as much of them in his mouth as he can. He's always trying to slip a finger or two in there when he's nursing, too. His little fingers are always so chapped thanks to that, since his skin is already so dry to begin with!

Anyway, that's a bit of a longer update than I had planned about Finn. We just love him so much, and are so glad to have him in our family. 

Just some pictures

Well, and a few words. But not that many, because I'm really tired. My brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders these days. Sometime in December all three of our children decided to quit sleeping. The worst week was when they woke us up 6 times in one night. And then the next night they woke us up nine times between the hours of 11pm and 5am. NINE times. Nine! And then the next night it was only a blessed five times. Luckily since then the girls have mostly returned to normal (ie: waking up hopefully only one time in the night and then getting up around 5). Finn is still trying to figure things out. We're crossing our fingers he gets there soon.

Anyway, here are a lot of pictures of four-month-old Finn.

He found his feet.

I took T out on a date a few weeks ago. We went to the mall because "Mom, I am a teenager". No, you're not, Teresa. "Well, I'm in highschool". Sigh. Anyway, she went in this dressing room by herself, and I looked like a major creeper taking pictures through the crack in the curtain. She was pretty much just admiring herself and playing with her hair.

We made some ice cream out of the freshly fallen snow we got a few weeks ago. Just snow and sweetened condensed milk. Oh, and some vanilla. It was surprisingly good.

Finn got a jumper. He likes it.

Technically obeying my instructions - "don't put anything over his face".