I’ve been falling behind a little lately on publishing pictures. Tonight, I completed the Ryan’s Third Month gallery. Now I’ve got to get the 4th month pictures together.
Also published the pontoon outing from August 17th. Mom, Karen, Terry, Kim, Mike, Zack, Billy, Val, Joey, Dave, Jen, and Ryan on an all-day cruise of Spring Lake.
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Ryan’s 4 month check-up was this morning. He’s still at or above the 95th percentile for height and weight. Weighing around 16.5 to 17 lbs and is 26.5 inches long, so he grew 3 lbs and 3 inches in 2 months! Dr. Sova says he’s growing very well. Ryan started taking some rice cereal a couple times a day last week. More ended up on him than in him. We’ll be starting vegetables soon. Sleeping like a champ at night getting anywhere between 8-12 hrs at a stretch and taking 2-4 naps a day or about 3-5 hours total. He absolutely loves to stand and can hold all of his weight for 5 minutes or so, also sitting supported by boppy for a couple of minutes. Loves to “fly” as well, but he sure gets heavy fast for me! He’s reaching for toys and shaking rattles. Chews on his fingers or whatever he can get into his mouth- time to start babyproofing the house soon. He loves loud smacking kisses-always gets big smiles. Still wants to be held a lot of the time but is able to entertain himself for up to 30 minutes in his standing activity center or bouncy seat. Also loving looking at mirrors. He’s not rolled over in a couple of weeks, wonder if he’s forgotten how.
Well, his 2nd and 3rd, anyway. I was playing with him on the floor tonight doing some “tummy time” and he wasn’t fussing about it like he normally does. He was staying strong on his arms and looking purposeful. Suddenly, he started to tilt to his right, extending his left arm and then lifting it. Pretty soon, he had rolled from tummy to back for his first time. It was like he just knew what to do.
Jen was nearby but missed the first one. We put Ryan back on his tummy and he did a few more for us, this time on video. I guess once he had it figured out, it was no problem from there.
Second rollover:
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Third rollover:
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This is all happening too fast. Dave was playing with him in the living room and I missed it. Ryan rolled over for the first time and I missed it! He rolled over 3 more times in the next 5 minutes which I got to see – and yep, I cried.
Okay, so it’s babble- but I swear he’s telling stories. In the last 2-3 weeks Ryan has been keeping us entertained. He’s “talking” quite a lot, punctuated by squeals. We would find this endlessly entertaining, but Ryan is only good for a few minutes of “talking” at a time, when he’s in his best moods. He will bless us with his ‘stories’ a few times a day though.
Dave thinks he’s reaching for toys. To me it looks like wild flailing and accidentally hooking a fist around something. Often my hair, necklace, or sometimes a toy. He doesn’t seem to know he’s snagged anything.
I unofficially weighed him a few days ago (bathroom scale and math: me + baby, and figure he’s up to about 14 pounds now. So hopefully he’s slowing down if he’s only gained a pound or so in the last month. I was afraid he’d weigh 40 by his first birthday.
I’ve been pulling out all 3-6 month clothes that we have – Thanks again Eric and Em. I’m shocked to find some of them are already snug. Some 6-9’s fit and some of his 0-3’s still fit well- kind of confusing!
Ryan’s favorite thing is still to be held, more than not. And I pretty much have to be up and moving for it to be acceptable to him. Good for my innate laziness to be challenged in that way I suppose. Funny that when Dave gets home Ryan can spend hours upon hours gazing adoringly up at his dad as he’s held by him without so much as a whimper…. traitor.
I published a bunch of new pictures tonight. Last weekend, Jen and I made two trips down to Bath. On Saturday we spent the afternoon hanging out with Val, Joey, and Rob at Joey’s apartment pool party with the Uptown Band playing. Saturday night I went to the Ionia Free Fair tractor pulls with Nate and Billy, and we all had a great time watching the big display of horsepower.
Sunday we made another trip down to have a family picnic with Dad. He was going in for knee replacement surgery on Monday morning, and wanted to get together with everyone before then. I captured a nice series of pictures of Dad telling a story using the continuous shooting mode on our camera.
I also started the Ryan’s Third Month album with a number of pictures we have so far. There is a picture in that album that Val took of Jen and Ryan that is just fantastic, just mom and baby’s faces together. There are two exposures of that one in the album.
Quick links:
This is my first post to test video embedding on the site. It’s a short video of Ryan at 10 weeks, taken by our Nikon S10 digital camera. It is a digicam with video capability, so it’s not exactly hi-def, but could be very nice for uploading bits of video up to our site.
Here’s the little guy getting around in the morning:
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I uploaded a new gallery of Ryan’s 2nd month pictures. The little guy is growing like a weed!
Ryan passed with flying colors! He now weighs 13 lbs and is 23.5 inches. Dr. Sova says he is above the 95’th percentile for both height and weight. His head is now 39 cm in circumference. Dr. says he is a big baby, but not overweight since he is growing proportionally. Dr. also thinks Ryan’s beautiful baby blue eyes will stay blue, so Ry has daddy’s eyes.
He still has his fussy days when he can’t be made happy for very long and seems to eat every hour, but they are balanced by his angel baby days when he sleeps all day long or plays happily by looking around and at his toys. I hesitate to say this for fear of jinxing myself, but more and more at night- last night included- he’s gone 8-9 hours without eating, 6 hours or more straight sleeping. There is a God! And He loves me!
Ryan is getting a lot more smiley these days too. Has even laughed out loud a few times- there cannot be a sweeter sound in this world! Sometimes he smiles for no reason, other times at play.
Ryan is getting so much bigger and better! He’s able to hold his head up in a supported sitting position for a few minutes at a time. His alert periods are getting more frequent and he spends his time waving his arms legs about and just looking around while breathing like he is excited. They last a couple of hours. Eating seems to put him to sleep. A very lovable baby and likes to be held if he’s fussy- will calm him right down. His little thighs are getting so chunky, hard to resist chewing on them a little bit. The other evening he slept for nearly 5 hours in row. That was artificially induced by a car ride in his seat, but hey- if it works…. He’s really great about traveling and going places, but I’m too nervous to be gone from home for long, unless Dave is there for backup. He’s also tracking objects from left to right, right to left and somewhat up to down now. Likes the rattle toys and will follow them or turn his head to our voices. It’s so rewarding to see him progress!! He’s taken to his pacifier which I will be eternally grateful for and Dave is still Best Dad Ever and I think we both fall in love with Ryan a little more each day.