The Bounce About

Liam is now 4 ½ months old. He has been to 7 different countries and has met people of over 15 nationalities… not bad for a little guy! A rapidly growing little guy, that is. I took him to the doctor on Thursday and he weighed in at 17lbs 6oz. He proudly wears size 6-9 month clothing… although most babies I know wear clothes bigger than their age (what’s the deal with the sizing system anyway?!). I’ve started weaning him from nighttime feedings – it’s going reasonably well. The other night he slept from 7:45pm to 5:30am, which was great. The night before that he went to bed at 7:30pm and woke up 4 times… not so great. But we’re working on it. We’ll master Sleeping Through the Night yet!

When we got back from our trip we realized that Liam was no longer as content as he had been to lie on his back on a blanket. While it had previously taken a good chunk of time before he would begin to complain, now the moaning was coming on much sooner. So we thought we’d try a Jolly Jumper, or Bounce About, as they call them here. At first he wasn’t sure what to think:

But soon he got the hang of it...

...and he likes it (read intense joy from Mommy!)  

Brendan and I now spend large amounts of time watching this 4 ½ month-old creature dangle in a harness suspended from the doorframe and squeal with delight when he bounces especially high.

Another thing we’ve been doing a lot of lately is singing. We sing songs all day long about eating, drooling, bouncing on the bed, etc. A few days ago, when Brendan’s singing was particularly incessant, I said, “Can we just have a minute without a song in it?” Caleb noted that rhyming my request for the singing to stop probably wouldn’t help the situation (go ahead and try making a song out of that – “Can we just have a minute without a song in it?” – way too easy).

Needless to say, we’re having a lot of fun over here with our little guy.