4 months.

Dear Beck,

Four months!!! Where is the time going? You are such a joy.

We will get your official stats tomorrow at your four month checkup. But we do know that you are a big boy. All of your three month clothes have officially been packed away. You are wearing a 6 month onesie from Carter's in your monthly picture and even fit into some 9 month clothes as well. You are one notch away from being too tall for your carseat.

What's new? Last week you rolled over for the first time. I wasn't here to see it. You were home with dad and he didn't see it either because his back was turned! Thankfully, you were in a safe location. You were on a blanket on the floor and when your dad turned back around you were face-down on the hardwood floor. Oops. We have since seen you roll to your side (even in your crib), but not all the way over again. This means we have been starting to wean you from your swaddle this week--switching you to having one arm out.

Speaking of sleep... We are right in the thick of what 'they' like to call the four month sleep regression. You haven't been sleeping well since getting over the bronchiolitis. You still go to bed at 7 every night and sleep for 3-4 hours. After that feeding though, things get rough. There are nights when you go back to sleep for a couple hours and there are nights when you are up every hour on the hour. This has been especially frustrating since you were spoiling us before. Once I realized that this is a common occurrence, I felt much better though. My scientific nature always drives me to research such issues and i have found comfort in the Dr. Sears sleep book--an oldie, but apparently a goodie. We are working our way through it and that mostly just means waiting it out. Waiting for your little brain to develop more mature sleep cycles and patterns. Again, once I learned the biological reasons behind your wakings (turns out you're not just doing it to torture us!), I felt much better AND more patient once again.

You are airplaning during tummy time, lifting both your arms and legs as well as your head. You hold toys and hold onto whoever is holding you. You try to hold your nightly bottle. Everything goes in your mouth. We're pretty sure you are teething (which also doesn't help the sleep). You are trying to sit up when in a reclined position. You are babbling. Sometimes even when you're falling asleep, you're babbling. You're also giving us rare giggles, although I'm still waiting for that outright, busting up, musical baby giggle. I feel like all of these things just happened in the last two weeks!!!

Favorite toys: anything you can put in your mouth

Nicknames: The Boy, Dude, Mister, Munchkin, Becks, Bucket (from your Dad's coworker)

We are having more fun. Sunday was a particularly pleasant day. A late morning nap with Dad, a trip to Costco in the afternoon, a long walk as a family with Lita Loo, lots of smiles and playtime in between.

I'm still enjoying being back at work even though it means being away from you. It's good that you spend time with Dad, Oma, and Gramma though. They all take good care of you. And you have your special things with each one of them.

We found out this month that your Nona and Gpa are going to be moving to Ohio. This makes your Dad and I very sad because we know they'll miss seeing you. We will miss them as well! But we will try to make sure that you still get to know them. And I know there will be visits.

We are defiitely becoming more comfortable as parents. There are so many more exciting things in store for us!

We love you!