17 weeks/4 months

Little buddy will be 4 months old this week! We have his well visit scheduled for next week, but my guess is he'll still be tipping the scales in the weight department. The home scale reads 20.5lbs and he is in almost all 12 month clothes. I think it's sort of a sham put on by the baby clothing industry, to make clothes smaller than the standard, so you will need to buy more.

Some redneck in the furniture store this weekend called him a fat baby. Rude. Only I can refer to him in that way!

 Billy was watching him for a bit the other day and asked me what I do all day with him. I laughed, because it takes a lot of patience and energy to be with him all day. He doesn't exactly entertain himself! We have a nice little circuit of the playmat, jumper, excersaucer, tummy time, the occasional book, then milk and a short nap. A lot of times, he does chores with me too. One of the ones he rarely gets fussy for is emptying the dishwasher because I think it's loud, and I tell him what every piece is.

He is just a happy guy the majority of the time though! His favorite place to be is the changing table. He squeals and kicks and we both think its the funniest thing! We have "conversations" too. I'll say something, and he'll reply back in his baby language. Sometimes, I think he's just going to start talking with words!

I took him on a big grocery shopping trip last week.  I had to get so much, I knew there would be no room in the cart for his infant car seat.  So I strapped him up in the moby wrap and he was a happy baby, almost the whole time.  I get nervous about him screaming, so I still hurried through the trip faster than I normally would and forgot quite a few things.  Every 3rd person wanted to how I had him wrapped in there though - the Mid Ohio Valley has never seen such a contraption!

 Talking to my brother this weekend about his brand new baby, I assured him that it gets easier, and more fun! Will has started paying more attention to, and interacting with Billy more. In the first couple months, he basically did not exist as far as Will was concerned! In a book I use for reference, it says that after month 3, you will have earned your your parenting badge and you get your sense of humor back. I don't think I lost mine, but it was overwhelming at times! I remember thinking he was never going to sleep through the night. But here we are-soundly sleeping for 8ish hours most nights!

I'm taking my first big trip with Patton AND Will this week to see Lisamarie and Baby Anders. We should only need to stop once to feed/change, so hopefully it will be a quiet trip - with lots of napping from the pup and babe!