4 months!!

Well, well, well, another month has gotten us!!

Emmett is just so precious & such a little joy-giver! He has brought so much to our family

& we are so very thankful he is ours!!

A few tidbits about our little guy:

He has become quite a chatterbox. This is new-- like, this week, new-- it is FUN. I love it. I love to hear him talking away-- especially in the car! It is a nice change from crying :) He is in fact talking me through this post!

He WANTS to sit up. A lot. He will hardly recline at all w/out

an extensive effort to stay upright.

The rolling over continues. Every morning I find him on his back. (he's a tummy sleeper) I'm still swaddling him, so as soon as he gets on his back the battle to regain control of his hands begins, which brings me to the next important fact:

The boy will NOT not suck on his hands AT ALL TIMES. During nursing, with the pacifier, both hands, all fingers, just two fingers, thumb only-- you name the combo, he's done it. BUT not consistently enough to actually profit from. He still can't soothe himself with it. I've heard both arguments re: hand vs. pacifier. At this point I have no control... but the paci is the soother, so I'm hoping he'll master that skill at some point. Still not fully able to keep it in w/out occasional assistance.

(he has now moved from chattering to hand-sucking)

He is very smiley-- which is just plain awesome. He at times has this cute little crooked grin, which makes me think, watch out ladies!! When he gets older, he might have that debonair crooked-grin charm of some of the greats... Carey Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Jon Hamm, Harrison Ford... I'm sure there are others :)

His legs are crazy strong. He is pushing out of everything these days & we have to be super careful to make sure he's belted in to whatever he's sitting in. Also, it has made diaper changing quite a challenge :)

He's still getting up once every night-- I'm hoping to start putting a little bit of rice cereal in a nightly bottle (which means I have to make my lazy self do some pumping)-- w/the goal of course being to get him to sleep through the night. I think it might work-- I tricked him two nights ago by just re-swaddling him & putting him back in bed w/the pacifier. He didn't eat for 8 hours! So I know he can do it, the question is, will he?!??!

He is a somewhat decent traveler! We took a family trip to Mt. Rushmore last weekend & he did pretty good. The first 24 hrs he was confused I think, but he evened out after that. I think maybe longer trips might be more baby-friendly at the moment-- he just needs more time to adjust. I did make a complete idiot of myself singing literally every song I could think of to keep him from having a full-blown melt down on the way home... which was fun & challenging & then just got OLD. I'm thinking flying (though it scares me) is definitely the better way to go!!

He is really enjoying his exer-saucer! It is amazing to watch his little mind

working to figure it all out-- but so far, so good. I'm thankful that as

he gets older we have more entertainment options!

He likes to be outside-- it buys us some time if he's close to bed time but I want him up a bit longer. Walking, watching Dave work in the yard-- anything outside really catches his interest.

He has a new BFF. Douglas the Dog, from the Gilsenans! Kim said Riley picked him out, & Riley, that was a great choice b/c Emmett LOVES him.

Bath time = Splashfest. We have officially moved upstairs to the tub. A tub in a tub, more like. It is not so back-friendly!! I need a live-in masseuse. He LOVES to splash-- though I'm not sure he really knows it. The splashing is a bit spastic, but thorough :)

That's all I can think of at the moment :)

We love him so dearly, & are daily amazed at this little creature!