Four Months

Hey, world! Guess who is four months old already? This guy!

What an amazing change over the past four months. Our little guy is growing up and filling out. We've doubled our birth weight already, from 6 pounds, 10 ounces at birth to 14 pounds at his last well-baby check-up. 

We have been totally slacking in the blog department. It turns out that working two full-time jobs and caring for an infant does not lend itself to much free time, especially to someone not known for her time management skills anyway. If I have extra time, I just use it to stare at this little guy. So I apologize in advance for the massive photo dump from the past three months. They're not necessarily even in chronological order because I kept adding just one more photo. We'll try to do better next time.

Two months old and wearing his favorite onesie, a lovely tribute to our sweet TJ.
I returned to work this week (~8 weeks, sadly).

Three months old and fully chunked out.
Someone got a shower in today.

Three-and-a-half months.
Nicole looks exceptionally tired; Oliver looks particularly well-rested.

Four months old and full of love.
(I don't know where these flashing hearts came from, but they work.)

Highlights from the past few months.

Reading stories with Grandma Johnson. She always has the best books.

Tuckered out from his Christmas festivities.

Once again, Oliver takes after his father. Only one of these guys is eating chicken wings, but it's hard to tell which one.

Unfortunately, our little one seems prone to a particularly stubborn case of eczema. This terrible, horrible, no good, very bad winter is making things difficult for all of us. Currently, Minnesota is experiencing the coldest winter since 1978-79 with at least 40-odd days below zero. Poor baby. Winter started early this year. He really hasn't had a chance to experience the warmth of our sun. 

He gets lotioned up head-to-toe every morning and evening and at most diaper changes, too. We keep trying to tell him that many babies would pay top-dollar for these hands-on personal massages, but he's not buying it.

Note the hydrating power of our top-of-the-line humidifier. Nothing but the best!

Some of our first baby giggles and smiles. They haven't stopped since. 

Thank goodness we have a happy, good-tempered little man. This is a guy that likes to party. If it's day-time, we're up. He's an expert cat-napper, taking maybe one or two 20-minute naps throughout the day. Sometimes I really wish he would take longer naps so I could get some stuff done around the house, but who am I kidding? I wouldn't get anything done anyway. 

Oliver's all-time favorite activity is looking at himself (and us) in the mirror, any mirror. I used to think he was just vain, but then I learned that he won't recognize himself until much later. So I have no idea why he loves this so much. He still might be vain.

His other favorite activity is grabbing his toes and pulling off his socks. This is especially fun when we have somewhere we really need to be. He has recently started rolling back-and-forth from his back to his side and back again. Loves it. Not quite rolling over yet, but that's OK. We still need to baby-proof our house.

For his three month birthday, I bought him a bumbo. He currently hates it. We're hoping he comes around by the time he starts eating solids because it came with a nice little serving tray.

These socks are going to be history!

Oliver, discovering our cat. Pickles and Oliver have an agreement. He lets her sleep curled up in his chair, and she leaves him little cat hair presents on every pacifier, toy, article of clothing, and basically anything touched by lotions, so essentially everything, everywhere, all the time.

His daycare face, circa 6:30 AM.

It's hard to take him too seriously when he's wearing his best bear paws, however.

To help Oliver combat his sensitive skin, we've been taking him to Como Zoo and Conservatory for the heat and humidity. I don't know if it helps, but sometimes you just really need to get out of the cold.

The start of another flare-up. So frustrating! It just makes me angry to watch him have to deal with this over and over and over again. Plus, we could just about buy a trip to Florida for what we've spent on creams and ointments and medications and doctor's appointments.

It turns out the iPad is a good substitute for a mirror.

Another flare-up. We're starting to suspect allergies of some sort, although our pediatrician and dermatologist continue to dismiss that possibility. I don't know, though. He seemed to react very poorly (hours later) to strawberries, but maybe he just doesn't know what to do with summer fruits since he's such a winter baby. We have since added (very dilute) bleach baths to his moisturizing skin care regimen, along with a small arsenal of topical steroids, used as sparingly as possible.

We have also returned to swaddling his arms at night so he can get some sleep. Otherwise, it's itch-scratch-itch-scratch all night long. He's given himself some pretty good scrapes if an arm gets loose overnight. Seriously, it is a two-person job just to change a diaper sometimes. Someone has to pin his arms down on the really bad days.

He is so darn cute, though, that it's easy to overlook all the work. Totally worth it!

For Valentine's Day, Adam and I skipped the wine and chocolate and bought a jumperoo instead. Best gift ever! This baby loves it! Miracle product. Let us know if you need to see a video or three. He's eating up my memory card with his cuteness.

We survived our four month vaccinations with far fewer tears (Nicole) than our two month vaccinations. 

Side note: stripes are in.

This is his plotting pose. He likes to clasp his hands together and stare out of the corners of his eyes while he's working on his world domination plans.

Here is a crazy sign that it's cold, really cold: frost is forming inside our house. We will need to address this issue when it warms up, but my thermal detector informs me that this corner is a cool 34 degrees.

Meanwhile, our fridge is a balmy 61 degrees for the second time this month. Adam has been staying busy with home repairs this year. Another unintended consequence of our one recent warm day was the appearance of four new ice dams from the roof. My personal favorite was the water dripping from the ceiling straight into our computer. If I lose the rest of this post, at least you'll know why.

We got a sweet blizzard to end this week. We got a partial snow day in that daycare was closed so someone had to stay home (Nicole), but now someone (Nicole) will have to work on the weekend, and not for the first time this winter. Boo. At least it was pretty.

Our poor birch trees have had just about all they can handle this winter.

Can you find our lawn chairs?
I promise they are there since we forgot to put them away before the first snow fell in November.

I couldn't make it up the snow hill to the bird-feeder, so I just threw the birdseed as close as I could. The neighborhood squirrels were very happy.

Finally! The sun! Thank God the days are getting longer.

Merry Christmas from Adam, Nicole, and Oliver. 

Sorry we're a little late.

Catch you in a few more months! Check out those clean and clear baby cheeks! 

He is going to be smothered in kisses today.