Growing up

Luke is a giant. He's just over 4 months old, and he's wearing 6-9 month clothing. Maybe the formula has made him grow faster, or maybe he really will be an NBA star. I'm hoping the latter.

Luke's settled into a pretty good sleeping routine. He's asleep by about 7:30 every night, and sleeps mostly through the night. We usually wake him between 10 and 11 to feed him one more time, then attempt to sleep. Most nights, he makes it until about 5:30-6 the next morning. Lately, he's been up at odd hours; we think it's due to the frenzy of colds going through our family.

Melissa has been fighting off several colds over the past month or so. Her kids at school are walking diseases, so it's amazing she isn't sick more often than she is. I only had one cold. Luke had a slight fever last week, which kept Missy and I both on edge and exhausted. He slept all through the day, and there were a couple days where the ENTIRE time he was awake he was crying. It was not fun.

Luke continues to become more aware. He searches for your voice when he hears it. He will stare intensely at you when you're making noises. He likes to look at bright things, especially TVs and computers. He continues to try to sing / talk to us, but unfortunately his favorite sound is a loud screeching noise that would probably make an opera singer faint. His mother and I are competing to get "Dada" or "Mama" as his first word.

His diapers are more routine, and downright scary. Formula diapers are incredibly nasty. Maybe this is a wake-up call for solid foods, but yikes. He's grouped the "poopy" diapers more now. Usually once every 2-3 days he lets it go, and it's usually in a set of three. Three COMPLETELY FULL diapers. It's a solid test of your constitution to change one of them.

His walking instincts seem to be kicking in. If you guide him he will make the walking motions a lot better now than he used to. We got him a bouncing toy to get his legs stronger, but we usually walk him all over the place every day anyway. The sooner he's walking, the sooner he's running, and the sooner I can train him in cross country!

Melissa nurses him about 1-2 times a day now, and the rest of the feedings are formula. He seems okay with the current formula, but we tried a couple different types and brands and he rejected them. Sometimes he's really odd and rejects even Melissa's nursing. He eats small amounts, which is surprising since he's growing like a balloon. It's still usually 4-6 ounces per feeding.

He had a good time at Thanksgiving. He got to hang out with his cousin. They had a great time together. He seems happy sleeping anywhere and in anything, which is fine by us. He usually dozes through car rides too.