Graham Update #2

Well, we once again missed Graham's birthday. He turned 4 months on Saturday and we celebrated with a trip to DC to ride the Metro and see the Smithsonian, an event which I will blog about at a later date. Today we went to the doctor for his four month checkup.

Here are his stats:
Weight: 14 lb, 2.3 oz (32nd percentile)
Height: 25.25" (61st percentile)

So he's up 2 and a half pounds and 2 inches from his two month checkup!

For comparison, Elias was 14 lb, 5 oz and 25.5" at this age.

As the doctor was checking out his joints (grabbing his legs and moving them in big circles) and otherwise poking and prodding him, she commented on how calm he was. Truly, there is a huge difference in temperament between Graham and Elias at this age. Elias was a fighter and loved hands-on attention. The baby books always say you should put your baby in bed "drowsy but awake" to help them learn to sleep on their own. The people who wrote those books never met Elias. "Drowsy but awake" would turn into "angry and not going to sleep" as soon as his back hit the crib mattress. We had to hold or rock him to sleep every night until he was almost 18 months old. Graham, on the other hand, will happily lay in his crib cooing until he drifts off to sleep on his own, or sometimes with the help of his aquarium. I didn't know babies could do that until I met Graham! Though Graham loves attention like Elias did, he doesn't need to be right on top of me all the time. People posit that Graham is so relaxed because John and I, as experienced parents, are more relaxed, but I think this is an insult to Graham as an individual who has preferences and desires of his own.

Anyhoo, other things Graham is doing now: sucking on his fist and/or fingers, making oohing and ahhing sounds, sitting up for a couple of seconds when propped up, and grabbing at toys (so he can bring them to his mouth and suck on them, naturally). He's full of smiles and laughs, especially when his big brother is doing something goofy like dancing around on his bed wearing a bicycle helmet. He still wakes up a couple of times a night to eat, but goes right back to sleep with no problem and will usually sleep until 7 or 8 in the morning, so its not too bad.

After the post about Graham rolling for the first time, he took a short break from it, only to start up again last week with a vengeance. He is still going front to back, but is getting closer to doing back to front. He can get up on his side from his back, tantalizingly close to making it all the way over, but hasn't figured out he needs to move his bottom arm out of the way so he can complete his roll. Elias, in his usual contrary way, learned to roll back to front first, which is the opposite of what most babies do. The problem was that he hated being on his tummy, so he would roll over, then cry until someone came along and flipped him over onto his back.

NB, I don't mean to come off as negative when I talk about Elias. He reached most of his milestones early precisely because he was disgruntled much of the time. He wasn't happy laying in one position, so he learned to roll. He was mad he couldn't reach the toys so he crawled and then walked. He was frustrated we couldn't understand what he wanted, so he learned to talk. Being chronically dissatisfied can sometimes be a good thing!