Will - 4 months

Dear Will,

You are 4 months old now and are making leaps and bounds as you grow older and larger.

You tried rice cereal for the first time today. You were incredibly excited about the spoon and very patient while you tried to figure out how to move the cereal from the front of your mouth to the back. Mostly that was a failure. You did make the attempt to keep the cereal in your mouth by letting me put some in and then sucking on your fingers. That worked a little better but we still have a long way to go.

At night you let me put a little mashed avocado on my finger and stick it in your mouth to suck. You seemed to do pretty well with that.

You have really found your smile and while I dont often catch it in pictures, your smile is a sight to behold. You grin wide, toothless grins and often your whole body radiates with joy at whatever has made you happy. I day dream about your smile when I'm at work and can't wait to come home to them every night. Well, those and you're chub.

That's a good segway into something I want to talk to you about. Your chub. While you were my middle child in terms of birth size, you are far and away my fattest baby at 4 months old. At a 3 month Dr visit you weighed in at a hefy 15 lbs. Your sister Lizzie weighed something like 12lbs at that age. I'm not sure what Kylie weighed then as I can't find those records but you can sure bet, it wasn't 15lbs. Comparing pictures of your thighs and her thighs at the same age makes her look skinny in comparison and at the time she was the fattest baby I had ever seen. I'm just saying buddy, keep up what you're doing because it's obviously working for you.

What seems to work for you, by the way, is breastmilk. When I went back to work and school with your sisters respectively, they quickly lost interest in nursing. Within a week after full time daycare bottle introduction they were both completely over me. But you, you aren't willing to go so quietly into that good night. You still nurse after I pick you up from daycare, at night on the rare occasions you wake up and all day on the weekends. You are a milkaholic. I'm okay with that for the time being and am able to pump at work but I am beginning to wonder what it's going to take for you to wean. You aren't so easily swayed by the easy drip of a bottle.

You have just in the last week or so really learned how to laugh. I can sort of get you to do it but your Grandma Leslie has you down cold with it. She knows all the good spots on you and it's pretty much a given if she talks to you you'll laugh. I'm pretty sure you're a Suck Up. I understand you might be going for "Favorite Grandchild Status" but I must warn you, you have a lot of competition from your cousins and sisters. It's going to be tough.