Robert's Weblog

4.5 Months

I didn't have time to put up photos last week, so here are a few more than usual.

4 months

Robert turned 4 months on tuesday. Yesterday I took him for his 4 month well-baby check-up. He now weighs 14 lb 10 oz which puts him in the 50% for weight, and is 25 3/4 inches long which puts him in the 75% for height. The doctor said we can try to see if he wants to start solid food. We can try giving him some rice cereal but if he doesn't want it, then wait another month before trying again.

The way our doctor recommends introducing solid food is at 4 months you try cereals made out of rice, oatmeal and barley (they're very smooth, no lumps or chunks). At five months, you introduce vegetables, and a month later you add fruits. You always just introduce one new food at a time for about 5 days to make sure the baby has no allergic reaction to it. She recommends introducing sweet food like fruits last so that a baby develops a taste for vegetables first. Once babies taste fruit they might not want to try something non-sweet like vegetables.

So, yesterday I bought some rice cereal. We prepared some in a bowl (you mix it with breast milk and it has a very liquid consistency), got the video camera ready and started to feed Robby. Jef took a spoon and put it in Robbie's mouth. Robbie made an unhappy face and started to whimper a bit. We decided to give him some milk first so he's not too hungry to try the new food. We then tried a spoonfull again. Again an unhappy face. We managed to feed him a few spoonfullls before giving up. A few minutes later he spit it all up. We gave him a bottle of breastmilk and he drank it clutching the bottle with both hands so we wouldn't take it away again. It looks like Robbie isn't ready for solid food yet. We'll try again next month. :)

Other than that he's been developing a lot in the last week or so. Whenever he sits in my lap, leaning against me, he's always trying to lean forward to sit by himself. He uses his hands to gain some sort of balance. He also often leans forward to grab a foot and tries to stick the foot in his mouth. Maybe that's why he didn't want solid food, he's happy just eating his foot and hands. He's also rolling from his back to his side a lot. He's getting to a point where we can't just leave him on the sofa alone for a few minutes because he might roll off. He's been using his hands more and more in the last month. He's reaching for things and grabbing everything in sight (and sticking it in his mouth). This is a fun time for us because you can interact with him in so many ways now.

Captain Robert T. Jakobs

Captain Jakobs punches a few buttons on his command central and turns his ship in a new direction. "Oh Oh, there's two space monsters on my left", he thinks to himself. He pushes another button and launches a missile between the big black space monster and the small golden one, scaring them off. "Whew, saved the day again", he thinks. He steps on a foot pedal and changes course again. Suddenly he sees a large creature head towards him, it reaches it's hands into his cockpit. "That's enough time in the exersaucer sweetie, let's check your diaper" it says as it lifts him out of his seat.

On the Move

Robbie is getting to a stage where he won't sit still. He's always trying to sit up by himself, or reach for his toes (and fall over), or crawl (which he can't do yet). He sometimes gets frustrated that he's not more mobile.

A Day at the Lake

We spend yesterday afternoon at the lake. It was warm (and very humid) but cloudy, so we didn't have to worry about the little guy getting too much sun. He happily lay on the towel and played with his feet. We tried dipping Robbie's feet in the water to see how he'd react, but the water was cold and he didn't like that at all. It took him a few minutes to forgive us.