Littlest: Four months

Sweetheart, 

You're four months today and such a gorgeous delight of gurgles and giggles and triumphant grins. I know I only completed your three month letter a couple of weeks ago but even in those two weeks you seem to have grown hugely. 

Your little giggle is deep and wheezy and completely delighted. Heh-hehehehehe! Sometimes when I just giggle at you, you giggle back, sometimes I have to work for it, blowing raspberries on your belly or smooching your neck. You also think your brother and sister are your own personal entertainment system and you'll often giggle at them.  

You are exceptionally bad for my ego - on seeing me your whole face lights up in a beaming grin. I'm sure such blatant adoration can't be good for me. 

You are reaching out more and more, to touch, to feel, to move. While you feed your hands are constantly sweeping, moving, patting, kneading. You reach out for food, grab for toys. You like to hold my fingers, clasping, unclasping, furling, unfurling your fingers, and then moving on to reach for my book. 

You have discovered your own soft, downy head, and for a few days there you were constantly reaching up to feel the softness at the back of your skull. It looked very affected and droll. I don't blame you - your little head is so silken and warm. 

We are calling you the Drool-Meister at the moment because you are just swimming in dribble. You are constantly chewing on one hand, or both hands or your fingers and drenching at least one bib a day. I don't like to put you in a bib over night in case it covers your face, so you always wake damp chested. 


You are more accustomed to tummy time now (although it tends to make you posset) and struggle to move around, making odd swimming notions, pushing your little backside in the air, raising up your head. Even on your tummy you want to be in control, lifting up your head and legs with better tummy muscles than I have. (Not precisely hard.) 

Your daddy took all three of you for two afternoons recently while I was at work and he was pleasantly surprised with how well you took the bottle - and how easy it was to delight and entertain you - as long as there was milk in the offing. It's the first time he's been able to feed one of you while you're milk-dependent, and it was clear he liked it. He has talked of mummy-envy - the envy of being able to instantly settle a baby, and this seems to be a solution - although I can't say I'm a fan of expressing. I feel distinctly bovine. 

We took you to the beach last weekend, and you lay on the sand and gurgled up at the blue sky (you were carefully in shade: note to self, we need to get you a sunhat). Your sister put a pile of sand on your tummy so you could truly experience the beach and you got little sandy toes from kicking. We put your tiny feet in the sea - you looked startled. We put your tiny feet in a sun-warmed rock-pool, where soft weed swirled around them - and you smiled. 

You are joining the pack on the trampoline now - loving being 'one of the kids'. Your sister loves to hold you as you stand, so strong on your podgy little thighs. 

Your brother saves his softness, his tenderness for you. His voice changes when he talks to you, takes on a tone he uses for no one else. Your sister loves to hold you, loves 'girl-time' with just the three of us. When we got home from the beach on the weekend, cold and sandy we all tumbled into the bath and you thought it was the best of fun. We've given up using your little baby bucket - now you either have a shower with your daddy or I or a bath with the kids. 

You went back to waking frequently in the night again - after weeks of sleeping through I found it a bit of a shock (the night earlier this week that began with your brother vomiting all over the bed, then the floor, and continued with you waking continuously was a bit of a downer) but we think we have solved the mystery - you chew on your little hands, get them all wet with slobber and then they freeze. We are now ensuring you have little mittens that don't fall off and you are sleeping much better. 

Your daddy has started a new rotation in the city so he's walking up to the train station before you kids wake up, (putting a coffee beside my bed for your first feed, leaving the porridge in the microwave) and returning just on bed time or after. He was sick all last week and we reveled in the daddy-time, but this is a new week. 

Four months wee one, A third of a year. You are still so small, so new, and yet are becoming so known. In your face and good humor, the way you smile so beguilingly at strangers, the mischief in your grin, we are increasingly seeing who you are. You are a hip baby now, happy to see the world from my hip, although you are often in a wrap. You are becoming increasingly less happy in a bouncer (unless you're outside). 

You are still wheezy - you've never really thrown of your sickness. You grunt so much your daddy calls you 'Hoggy' -although I always tell him off. My poor little darling. I hope the move to warmer weather clears up your chest, I always get a pang at your shnuffling. There was a report about the fires earlier in the year and it talked about babies with respiratory problems - that's you sweet. It almost made me cry. And of course we don't know that the fires and smoke caused your wheezing... but I'll be glad when we're well away. 

Your little baby pimples have disappeared and your skin is so delicate and soft - bar a tiny bit of cradle cap. We are thinking you'll have dark hair and your eyes are looking decidedly blue. You take more after your brother than your sister - he was a solid little bundle of cuddles - your sister was all elfin lankiness. 

My chubby little cherub - you bring us so much laughter, your smile is so infectious (in a good way!) it is so lovely to see you take your place in the family, our little Drool-atron.