Gabriel is 4 Months Old

Gabriel Thomas is 4 months old now.  We had his 4-month well-child appointment this afternoon...he weighs 12 lb. 15 3/4 oz and is 24.5 inches long.



Wasn't it just yesterday that he looked like this, and we were meeting him at the hospital?

I've been working on this post for about a week now.  I don't even really know where to start.  I've been looking - and then looking some more - at all the pictures I've uploaded for this post and I just sit here...overwhelmed with feelings of awe and gratitude and joy.  Give me something silly about my children to write about and I can whip out a post pretty quick.  But give me something big and deep and so overwhelming - like the feelings this little guy produces in me - and well...I'll stare at it googly-eyed for a week apparently.


But, the show post must go on...so I'm going to just dive in...

I mentioned in Gabriel's 3-month update that he'd started blowing raspberries.  He sometimes still does this, but just as often now, he does the exact opposite:

He sucks **in**.    Notice the half a lip that you canNOT see in the above picture.

Come to think of it, he sucks on lots of things.

His thumb...



...his fingers (and sometimes practically his whole hand)...

...his clothes...

...or a blanket he can grab onto.

Jas observed the other day that Gabriel seems to be very "orally fixated." Ya think?



Another new favorite activity is grabbing a hold of whatever is in front of him...

...which is usually just his clothes.

While we're at it, check out that precious belly in the past two shots...I just want to nibble on it!


I have to admit, though, my absolute favorite of his newest accomplishments is pictured here:

See how he is "holding" on to my arm with his arm?  He's got his little armed hooked around mine to help hold on.  It is so precious...and feels so good.



Gabriel is still sleeping in the bassinet in our room, on my side of the bed.  He has a perfectly good crib waiting for him (that he has taken exactly one nap in).  Now that he is only waking up one time a night, I have on several mornings (as Jas and I talked before he headed to work) told Jas that I thought it would be fine to move Gabriel to his room now.


And then...by that night I've changed my mind.  I know (from parenting our first four children) how fast time flies by.  He will not always be in our room.  This is a season...a season that will all-too-soon be over.  And I'm happy for him to be here with us for now...and for a while still.  Jas feels the same.  Love that sweet hubby of mine!


Gabriel is eating about 6-7 times a day, and only wakes up once at night...normally sometime between 1 and 3 a.m.  We're still supplementing him with formula...but the best we can figure, his diet is about 2/3 breast milk, 1/3 formula.  He actually did sleep through the night for 3 nights in a row several weeks ago, but by the third day I could tell that going for that long stretch at night was adversely affecting my milk supply.  Not cool. So we started waking him up once in the middle of the night to feed him...and now he wakes up on his own again.  If anyone had ever told me that **I** would be the one to insist that we keep up a middle-of-the-night feeding, I would have thought they'd lost their ever-loving mind...but I've worked too hard to get this nursing thing to work to let a little lost sleep get in the way now!

The four older children are all so good with him.  I felt like they would be...but I had not anticipated just how helpful...and how absolutely smitten they all are with him.

And he is smitten with them right back.

They've all got a Mutual Admiration Society going.  They come up and smile and talk with him - He smiles - They smile more and want to talk with him and smile more - which makes him smile more, etc....



It is an absolutely lovely thing to watch.

But the boy does seem to like to smile.

Sometimes he can be serious...

But usually all you have to do is look at him, and he will break out in a big smile...

Or his specialty:  a big, BIG, eye-closing, tongue-peeking-out smile:

Someone asked me recently as she watched me hold Gabriel, "HOW do you get anything done?"  She wasn't being ugly, she truly wondered.  The answer: Gabriel is just right in the middle of everything - right there with the rest of us. When he's not sleeping, that is.  (Which he still does alot!)

Gabriel supervising mama as she folds laundry:

I only do mine, Jas' and G's laundry, the other children put away their own - but that is a different post.

Playing with Mrs. Robbie at 11 p.m. at the airport:

Is it o.k. to dress your helpless child up and then laugh at him and take pictures? Something feels a little wrong about it...

...but it doesn't stop us.

And is it wrong when I continue snapping pictures of G when he's had enough...

...just because I want to finally capture a pic of his pouty lower lip? But it is so cute when he sticks it out!

Here is Mr. Gabriel at one-month old:

Here he is at 2-months old:

3-months old:

4-months old:

(His legs have really started lengthening out!  This would explain why he's gone up in his percentile on the height chart.)

We think that Gabriel may be starting to teethe...or maybe he's going through a growth spurt.  Either way, he has been a tad fussier the past few days.  That equates to me holding him/wearing him more.  I had not actually used the Moby wrap in the last few weeks at all...and then I needed to wear it/him a couple times today.  OH, I'd forgotten how much I liked having him close like that...and he is so content being "worn".  No, it is not as easy to move around and get stuff done - it takes me about twice as long to get anything done - but at least I can still get stuff done, while keeping my precious babe close and happy.

Here is our new mei tai carrier.  I don't use it (or the Moby) much at home at all anymore...

...but if the 6 of us are out and about somewhere, chances are that I'll be wearing him.

There has recently been a necessary court date on our road to finalize Gabriel's adoption - which we think will be finalized in June or July.  We anticipated that everything would go smoothly with that hearing, and it did..but it's nice to be on the other side of that.

We are required (and we're happy to oblige) to send "Sharing Sheets" and several pictures of Gabriel to our adoption agency every month.  The "sharing sheet" is a one-page document that includes information on Gabriel's development.  If Gabriel's birth mom or dad wanted an update on Gabriel, they would contact our agency and be given these sheets and pictures.  We have no idea if anyone is looking at what we send the agency, but it always causes me to stop and ponder his birth mom especially.  The pace of my heart quickens and I have a lump in my throat thinking about the "what ifs".  I can't bear to think about the what ifs.  So many what ifs...and if they hadn't worked out just the way they did, he wouldn't be here.  And he is so supposed to be here.

We are eternally grateful that she chose to give Gabriel life.  And we are eternally grateful that the Lord chose for Gabriel to be our son.