Riley: Four months

"Look over there! That way! No, back there! If I could only turn my head a couple more inches ... I'll just swing it back around in the other direction, damned if I hit my Mom's jaw with my big, hard head doing so!" If Riley's mind could be read, that would surely be what he's thinking most the time. For that, he's earned the nickname: "Looky Lou." At four months, Riley has become quite curious about the world around him, not wanting to miss a second of the action, even if it means fighting his heavy eyelids. It's made nursing a bit difficult because he's finding it's impossible to have his face pushed into his Mother's chest AND watching behind him at what Holden's doing.

When he's not contorting his body to see all that's new, he's using his strong little fists to touch and grab all that's in his reach. That's the genesis of yet another nickname: "Grabby McGrabs Alot." "What's this? Hair? Yum! I can pull that into my mouth! Hey, what's over here? Skin? Awesome! I can pinch this really hard with my sharp little nails to see what it feels like!"

With his new grabbing skills, Riley has also begun to play with a few little plush toys. Unfortunately, he's also experimenting with gravity. As a result, a soft, innocent giraffe that rattled so sweetly who became Riley's outing companion, has gone the way of other loveys lost in Old Navy during the holiday season. We pause a moment in mourning.

Starting this week, we are going to begin "sleep training" Riley, with the ultimate goal of getting him to sleep through the night. We were hopeful it wouldn't come to this, since he was doing four to six hour stretches starting when he was just a few weeks old. But, his nights remain exactly the same: He gets a "dream feed" while mostly asleep before I go to bed around 10 p.m., then he wakes anywhere between 1 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., then he's up again two to three hours later. It's unpredictable, it's exhausting and it's starting to make me loopy. I return to work in a month and cannot function without naps this way, so it will get ugly.

The sleep training involves putting Riley to bed still a bit awake, even if it means he's going to have to cry a bit. With most babies (including Holden), that's the easy part - within a week they usually go right to sleep without any crying. Of course, hearing your little one wail those first few nights is heart wrenching, and I'm not looking forward to that part again. After that, the idea is to get him to sleep longer stretches without eating. So, when he gets up in the middle of the night and it hasn't been six or so hours since he's eaten, it's Pacifier City. That's the hard part - especially since Riley comes pretty close to six hours. Chances are, I'll spend half an hour trying to get him back to sleep, only to end up feeding him because six hours will have passed.

As he's grown, so has the volume of his cries. He still doesn't cry much without reason and can usually be calmed down quickly. What's best, though, is his giggle. About once a day, he has a laughing fit that is the cutest, funniest thing ever. Full belly laughs from a wide open, gummy mouth. He's working on sounds now, too, with his most recent using his lower lip to go, "Bbbbbbtttttthhhhhh." And then he laughs hysterically.

Seriously, what could be better than that?