4 months

Frankie is 4 months old as of Wednesday! Like every first-time mom ever, I had to take a million photos and update you guys with ALL the dramatic details (ha).

I'm pretty sure I could stop writing this blog right now and just leave you with this one thought and you would know exactly what every single blog post from now on is going to (directly or indirectly) say...

I LOVE MOTHERHOOD.

Yep, I do.

Why don't people really talk about how fun and hilarious and delightful babies can be? Not to mention useful? I've been thinking about it, and I can hardly think of any situation in life in which having a baby is not useful. A few examples:

You're at a party where you don't know anyone. You need an ice-breaker, a way to meet people and make friends. The perfect solution? A BABY. People naturally gravitate to babies and will come up to ask you the baby's name, age, etc., and try to make the baby smile. There ya go, the ice is broken.

You're sitting through a really boring lecture/speech/class/homily and you desperately want an excuse to step outside. You know what you need? A BABY. Just give the people next to you an apologetic smile, whisper "Diaper!" or "He's hungry!" and off you go with the perfect excuse to waltz right out of there. Home free!

You're tired and you really don't want to go anywhere, but people are bugging you to go out. What will solve your problem? A BABY. Just pull the classic, "Oh, the baby's had a really rough day/kept me up last night/is teething/[invent reason here]" and you have the perfect excuse to stay in, because no one's going to question the baby! (Or you could just be an adult and say you don't want to go out, but a baby is also a convenient excuse.)

Anyway, so Frankie is at this incredibly fun stage where all he does most of the day is smile and giggle and chatter away in his baby talk. He is an absolute delight to be around 98% of the time (the 2% is when he gets overly tired and cranky) and part of me wishes he could stay this adorable age always.

I thought maybe it was just my first-time-mom partiality thinking he was such a very happy baby, but then we went up to Door County with my family last weekend (more on that soon!) and on the last day of the trip, my little brother bounded up to me wanting to play with Frankie and asked, "Is Frankie happy? Or is he asleep?" That completely sums up that boy—either happy or asleep. He's so much fun.

As my friend Giedre said, "I was impressed that you managed to get so many pictures of him smiling... and then I actually hung out with him. He smiles all the time!"

Some things he's doing lately: he's rolled over front-to-back by himself twice (once on each of the last two Tuesdays... I'm seeing a weekly pattern here), he still LOVES to sing in church (and really everywhere), and he has a deep affection for our parish priest and bounds into his arms with big smiles at any opportunity. He loves the song "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider"—even though I sing him lots of different songs, this is the only one that always makes him laugh (maybe because of the silly hand motions?). He also prefers his Sherlock Holmes board book (thanks Emily!) and always stares with interest, unlike his indifference to most of his books. I think he likes the sound effects I make. It's crazy how someone so little already has such pronounced preferences! He had his four-month check-up yesterday and was in the 90th percentile for both weight and height. But he's not really a fat baby—he's actually quite lean—just a big little guy. He's such a teddy bear. I can't get enough of this age.