Baby Gabe turned 4 months old yesterday! Unfortunately, he suffered a nasty little self-inflicted cut on his cheek during the flight back home. We’re going to have to start filing his nails down after we cut them. Also, we think he might have been jetlagged as this was the first time since he was about 2 weeks old when he didn’t join us at the dinner table. He peacefully slept through it all. Happy Birthday, Baby Gabe!
This is a great little video of Baby Gabe with his A-ma. But the best parts are when he realizes he’s being recorded. His expressions at those times are priceless.
Baby Gabe mastered the art of the roll this week. Unfortunately, it makes diaper changes a little more difficult. Whenever he’s put on his back, the first thing he does is try to roll…
Baby Gabe met his A-tsoh (great-grandma) for the first time. Up until now, she had just seen and heard him via this blog and the occasional Skype session. Watching her finally being able to touch and hold him was the personification of joy.
Baby Gabe took his first flight today. He didn’t do too badly, all things considered. It was sort of a pain that we had to wake him up to take him out of the car seat at the security check. Both the stoller and the seat had to go through the xray machine. Surprisingly, other passengers were more accomodating than the flight attendants, except for one who forced the other two to wait a minute before pushing the drink cart down the aisle so Baby Gabe and papa could make it back to their seats after a diaper change. (Note: flight attendants do not like deviating from a schedule and will push a diaper-bag-wearing papa and baby onto other passengers’ laps to get by.)
Baby Gabe slept through half the flight. He nursed on the ascent, so that helped, but he was just on the binky on the way down, and that didn’t help as much. But mostly, he was quiet throughout, content at being passed back and forth from mama’s lap to papa’s.
On the one hand, Baby Gabe has grown so much over the last three and half month that he can enterain himself while his parents work, and he’s graduated to being forward-facing in the baby carrier.
One of the great things about Baby Gabe is that he doesn’t cry when he wakes up. Usually, it’s a slow process involving lots of yawning, stretching, eye rubbing, and kicking. It’s like the difference between waking up to natural light and soft music versus fluorescent light and a loud buzzer.
Because the summer heat is officially here, we’re worried Gabriel would get too hot and sweaty in his swaddle. So we decided to skip it and see how he’d do. He didn’t do so well. Even in his sleep, he’s always moving his arms and kicking his legs to get comfortable, and the swaddle kept him from doing all that activity that would sometimes wake him up (http://babygabe.net/2009/05/30/unsoliticted-advice/). We called on Spot again (http://babygabe.net/2009/06/03/and-bingo-was-his-name-o/) to save the day — or night as the case may be. Now he can wrestle with Spot to tire himself out and fall back asleep on his own.
At this stage of his development, we know that Gabriel can barely see us, let alone understand what we’re saying. But there have been many times when we’re left wondering. Just the other day, his mom had to wash her hands and face in the bathroom sink. Gabriel was sitting in his bouncer and started to whine. His mom looked over and said, “Baby Gabe, you’re going to have to wait another minute. Mommy doesn’t have a daddy to wash her all over like you do.” He stopped whining. The day before, Baby Gabe’s dad was in the kitchen steaming some fish when the fussiness started. His dad looked at him and said, “Baby Gabe, I’m not done cooking yet. The fish still needs to steam for another minute, and I’ve still got to make the sauce and heat the oil to sear the fish. You’re going to have to wait five more minutes.” And he did.
Baby Gabe’s dad then tried pushing it a bit later that night when Gabriel got fidgety again: “Baby Gabe, I’m in the lead with one lap to go, but Bowser and King Boo are close behind, and I need to watch out for those blue shells. You’re going to have to wait five more minutes.” That one didn’t work. Gabriel started screaming so his dad had to pause the game (which he later lost when Luigi came out of nowhere and zapped everyone right before the last turn).
Baby Gabe turned 4 months old yesterday! Unfortunately, he suffered a nasty little self-inflicted cut on his cheek during the flight back home. We’re going to have to start filing his nails down after we cut them. Also, we think he might have been jetlagged as this was the first time since he was about 2 weeks old when he didn’t join us at the dinner table. He peacefully slept through it all. Happy Birthday, Baby Gabe!
