Matthew: Four Months!

Womp womp. Back to the good ol' photo of the photo preview on the back of Darrell's camera!

Height/Weight: Well, the trend continues. Matthew is not just my youngest baby, but my smallest baby--although not by much. At his four-month well visit (which we got to have in person with only minimal modifications) he weighed in at 14 pounds, 14 ounces, which is roughly half a pound less than the average of his brothers. His height was 25 inches, which is shorter than his brothers, but not by much. Connor was the tallest at four months at just under 25.5 inches.

Wearing: Not surprisingly, he's still got plenty of room in his size two diapers. Which is good, because apparently I mistakenly bought a large box of them when I already had a large box on hand (I blame Darrell for reorganizing our storage room and I didn't know where he had put the diapers). He's also got plenty of room left in his 3-6 month clothes, although per the tag a handful of them are technically the 6-9 month size, but they've definitely shrunk. I suppose passing clothes down through four kids and washing them how many dozens of times eventually causes them to shrink. Go figure.

Eating: Breast milk. From the tap or from the bottle, he isn't too picky. Of course, he prefers for there to be absolutely no distractions around while he is nursing, which is a little difficult with three older brothers, but we've managed. I'm lucky to get a three-hour gap between nursing sessions during the day, but he's typically up only once at night, so I guess I won't complain too much.

Sleeping:Well, his sleep definitely hasn't improved--but it has already been pretty good, so given the age he is at I don't really expect there to be too much improvement. We did have a little bit of a setback just before he turned four months (a couple of nights where he was up every couple of hours and would only sleep if we held him), but we're hoping it was the four-month sleep regression and that now we're done with that. Most nights he'll stir at least once around ten (after a roughly 8:00 bedtime), but he settles back to sleep until between two and four when he gets up for a feeding. After that he'll sleep until seven or so, and this Mama is grateful for every minute of night time sleep that she gets from this boy. He's started to occasionally give us a long nap during the day, but usually his naps only last for 35-45 minutes. But, he takes them in his crib and with minimal fussing, so again--no complaints here.

New Stuff: Oof. Is it bad that I had to check the calendar to see what--if any--special events occurred this past month? And don't even try to blame it on #fourthchildproblems--this is absolutely a result of #quarantinelife. Regardless--the calendar reminded me that Matthew did get to help me celebrate my first Mother's Day with my four sweet boys! It was as lovely as a day as we could have in quarantine, and Darrell even picked up on my not-so-subtle hint to get me the "Friends"-inspired "Mother's Day 2020: The One Where We Were Quarantined" mug. Anyway. I digress from Matthew. We (still!) haven't really gone anywhere or done anything, so no new stuff in that regard, but developmentally he is a totally different child (or at least it seems that way some days). He's really started getting in to playing with toys, which means he can occupy himself in his exersaucer for at least a little bit (and honestly, his play time in there is usually ended by one of his big brothers--cough Garrett cough--before he actually starts to fuss about being in there). His favorite toys are anything he can get in to his mouth (including his toes! The toe sucking is seriously out of control--I usually have to force his feet out of his hands in order to get a diaper change) and as a not-at-all surprising result he needs an outfit change at least once (but usually two or three) times a day.

On May 11th--with no witnesses--Matthew rolled from back to front for the first time (he's got the front to back well under control). Darrell swears he placed Matthew on his back, walked away, and then looked over a few minutes later and Matthew was on his tummy (and no, his older brothers didn't do it--they were at the table waiting for a snack). Prior to this, we had no indication that he was close to rolling over because he had never really rolled to his side, but apparently it happened (and for this reason alone I am glad we have had his arms out of his swaddle for at least the past three weeks--the prospect of his first "back to front" roll occurring while he was fully swaddled in bed is a little terrifying). For the next few weeks we desperately tried to get him to repeat the feat, but he would readily roll to his side and then stop. There were many times he would get his hips all the way turned so that tops of both of his legs were on the ground (hopefully that makes sense...) but he wouldn't quite get his upper body turned. So while I believe Darrell that the "first time" happened, it definitely seems to have been a fluke.

The only other thing I can think to mention is his spitting up. Constantly. If he isn't needing an outfit change from drooling it's because he has spat up all over his clothes. And it's a rarity for me to make it through the day without an outfit change. We've dealt with this with pretty much all the boys, and while we've asked our pediatrician about it on more than one occasion, Matthew has been our first child to "show off" his proliferation for spitting up while at the doctor's office. Let's just say that our pediatrician actually made the comment that he's glad his office floors are laminate and not carpet like they were at his previous practice. But--like his brothers--his spitting up was diagnosed as a laundry problem and not a health problem because he is a "happy" spitter and still putting on weight at a reasonable rate despite the amount of milk that he projectiles out of his mouth. So I guess that's a good thing? All I know is that I'll be glad when I don't have to keep a minimum of three burp rags stationed throughout the house to clean up the messes he makes--although I'm sure that with four boys I'll probably never outgrow the need to keep easily accessible rags stationed throughout the house to clean up inevitable messes!