Almost four months

Time flies when you are having fun. And, we are certainly having a good time getting to know James, watching him learn new "tricks" (as Mary calls them - probably a carry-over from the dogs), snuggling with him for as long as he will allow, and just hanging out with him.

He will be four months old in just a few days. I think I've said before that in some ways it seems like just yesterday that he was born, but it also seems like we've always had him in our lives, mostly because we can't imagine our lives without him at this point.

In the last week, he has begun to clearly reach for things, and he sometimes actually grabs them! In the past month or so, when he may have wanted to grab something, all he did was what he normally did... which is to flail around aimlessly. But he is now catching things in his site and making a determined effort to get it. He is especially fond of his Link-a-doos, plastic links that attach to his car seat.

James is also going to bed earlier in the evening. For a while, we were putting him down around 11, then it shifted to 9 pm. In the last couple of weeks, we've been putting him down after he eats his evening meal, between 7 and 8 pm. Sometimes it takes him a little while to go down, but when he does, he stays asleep until around 11 pm, which gives Mary and me some time to get stuff done around the house and have some "adult time."

After he wakes at 11 pm, he generally wakes at 3:30 am, then again around 6 am. While we look forward to him sleeping through the night, we are careful not to wish away these early times in his life. He is still very much our little baby boy, and we like it that way!