Dexter is one day away from being 4 months old! He's so much fun these days. I can play with him for hours now. He laughs and coos. He takes whatever toy or practically anything I have in my hands that's within his reach. He's starting to bang on things too. He's started sitting for brief moments by himself. I pretty much just make sure he doesn't fall over or bum his head on something. He loves this mirror I got him. I sit him in front of it and he bangs on it and kicks it. He tries to bite the mirror and grabs all the toys it has on it and tries to put them in his mouth. It's kinda funny to watch him go to town on it because he's so hyper.
He's grabbing everything these days. I was in the closet and he grabbed a belt that was hanging. I turn around and he grabs a coat sleeve on the other side of the closet. I sat on the couch with him beside me and was looking through a catalog when he proceeded to grab and nearly rip a page in half. When I'm nursing him he sticks his arm straight into the air and grabs my chin, lips and sometimes hair. I'm glad he's not to my glasses or eyes yet. It's kinda funny at the moment because it's something new to watch him do.
He's still making funny noises and they seem to change nearly everyday. Yesterday he was doing this funny wheezy noise that was basically him making a wookie sound but sucking in air instead of letting it out. His baby sound vocabulary is growing. I occasionally hear him say what actually sound like simple words like "yeah" or "hey", but he's just making noise. It's going to be a long time before he talks, but his babbling is quite amusing.
The best noise though is him laughing. He seems to need to be in the mood for it, but Mr. Cobra can nearly always make him laugh. He's ticklish and so he laughs and laughs when we tickle him. He also likes us to duck down to hide and jump up and say "Boo!" Even if it scares him he laughs. I can usually get him to laugh by blowing on his stomach or side. I even sometimes dangle my hair in his face while he's nursing and make him laugh. He can't stay latched on when he smiles, so it's kinda funny. I love to hear him giggle.
He's really starting to recognize and prefer me. He's starting to cry when the babysitter first holds him. He gets this huge lip sticking out with the biggest frown he can possibly make. That builds to his entire face turning beet red and then the tea kettle whistle starts. Tears start coming out of his eyes and he shudders. It's just the saddest and yet most ridiculously funny things at the same time. He already has the pouty-lip down. After I leave the room, within minutes he's laughing though.
One thing I do find odd is that he was rolling over from tummy to back at 2 months old. He did it occasionally for about 3 weeks. Now he doesn't roll over that way at all. He rolls to his side when he's on his back, but won't roll all the way onto his tummy. I give him a lot of tummy time. I'd say he's on his tummy 30% of the time he's laying down. I roll him over from back to front and front to back which comes easily. He just doesn't seem to want to do it by himself. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm sure he'll pick it back up soon enough.
So the sleep saga is still a battle. Last night I got him down to a 3 minute feed. He used to do 8-10 minutes, so little by little I'm whittling away at it. Even when I pull him off, he only protests for a bit before drifting back to sleep.
Going to sleep is another story. I'm still trying to stick to the 9pm bedtime. Mr. Cobra has been getting home late, so it's been a challenge to give Mike more than just half an hour of baby-time before I start the process of putting him to bed which take 30-45 minutes. Last night he cried quite a bit when I put him down, but he was so tired. He actually took a pacifier he was so desperate to suck himself to sleep. I snuck in an hour later to grab the pacifier and ended up pulling it out of his mouth. It was firmly in there, but he didn't wake up.
