I love Hippos, Hippos love me!

Ahhhh! I am finally back to blogging. I didn't realize how much I would miss it until I went without it for over a month. I last blogged back in December but only recently published the post because I didn't have pictures downloaded from the camera yet. Also check my November blog again as I have added pictures there as well. We are picture fanatics and have millions of pictures of River (he is an irresistible subject to photograph) but when it comes to following through and downloading and/or printing them out, we were failing miserably until recently.

So here is a list of the latest developments I've been dying to blog about. It is amazing the difference that one month makes!

On December 27th River rolled over from his back to his front for the first time. He rolled from his front to his back for the first time at 2 weeks old and did it a handful more times between 2 weeks and 8 weeks old. But this was only when he was on his tummy and didn't want to be. Now he is highly entertained by his new mobility. We could tell he was getting ready to roll over right before Christmas because he kept on making what we called the "fish out of water" move... This move included practically throwing himself to one side like a fish flopping around on the ground or a fish jumping out of the water. Now he can roll over to his tummy and back very easily occasionally pinning one of his arms in the process. He also loves to curve his body into a C shape and then roll over to one side or the other for a different perspective. The downside is now it is not uncommon to find him sleeping on his tummy at night. This definitely scares me since pretty much every doctor and nurse that we've seen since the moment River was born has told us "Back is Best" and made it sound like sleeping on their tummy almost always resulted in SIDs. We have always had him sleeping on his back but apparently now he has decided that he wants to try tummy sleeping occasionally. The first night I found him on his tummy I barely slept after feeding him and returning him to his back. Sure enough when I went to get him up for his first morning feeding he was back to sleeping on his tummy! The paranoid mother in me is cringing just thinking of this. Any other moms have this problem and have any words of wisdom on how to deal with this?

Now that he has conquered the task of rolling over like a pro, he is showing some interest in crawling. The other day River was laying on his jungle mat and I was laying on the ground next to him. He rolled over onto his tummy and had himself propped up on his elbows and was looking around. All of the sudden he raised his little bum up in the air and started trying to get his legs underneath it. I clapped proudly and complimented him in typical proud mommy fashion. All the while I was internally fretting over how much this was going to change things... flashes of baby gates, stairs, dogs, glass tables, plants, power cords, cleaning supplies danced through my head. Since that initial attempt to crawl he loves to lay on his tummy (especially while he is nude after his nightly bath) and kick his legs out wildly. He gets going so wildly with his legs that he arches his back like he is doing the yoga pose called locust.

River had his 4 month well baby exam today. He has had a huge growth spurt as of late and so I was surprised to see he weighed only 13lb 11oz. That dropped him from the 25th percentile in weight down to the 10th percentile but the doctor didn't seem to be concerned as he is obviously a well loved and well taken care of baby. He shot up from the 25th percentile to the 50th percentile in height and his head circumference stayed in the 75th percentile. We left the doctor with a clean bill of health and the go-ahead to start feeding him solids in addition to his regular formula feedings. Not that we needed it, though. I had been mixing rice cereal in his bottle to help him sleep at night (it didn't work AT ALL!) and last week I started feeding him rice cereal from a bowl. Next week we will start on baby food sweet potatoes. I wonder if they'll taste as good as real ones? UPDATE: We started on to sweet potatoes with great results. Only bad thing is, they stain big time and eating is always a messy affair.

While at his appointment the doctor and nurses noticed how happy and smiley River is. He knows how to work a crowd giving these cute smiles all while turning his head to the side shyly. A lady we go to church with recently told us she thought River was the happiest, smiley-est baby she had ever seen. A lady standing behind me in line at the post office told me that River was quite the flirt giving coy little smiles to those standing in line behind us. He loves to smile and laugh when you tickle him, bounce him up and down in the air, and sometimes he laughs for no apparent reason. His Nanny Debbie told me that yesterday he was laughing at her dog Troy (a VERY cute little wiener dog) while he ran around and hopped up on the furniture. This has been a pretty recent development as it has only been a month or so since River started to show interest in the world around him... with the exception of Mommy and Daddy. We have always had the honor of his interest and attention :)

Another big development has been the improvements in his sleeping pattern. At the end of last year he was getting up every 2 hours and it was exhausting! Luckily, (for mommy reasons NOT for money reasons) the company I work for decided to close down for the holidays starting on Christmas Eve. Business did not resume again until January 5th. I decided to take advantage of the the opportunity to nap during the day and the four large books I had to read by staying up with River all night to help gently nudge him into a schedule. The schedule is as follows:

• 9 pm River gets his nightly bath followed by tummy time play and then prayer and scripture study with mommy. You would not believe how effective praying and reading the Bible is in getting this kid to sleep. When all is said and done he is conked out! But then again, aren't we all after that ;)


• 10 pm, take him down to his crib once he is asleep. I decided to encorporate the switch to the crib at the same time in hopes that all would go well together. He has had no problems adjusting to the new sleeping location, luckily.


• 2 am, wake up and feed him. At first I would wake up at 2 am to feed him regardless of whether or not he was awake because I was afraid of how difficult it may be on him not to have enough to eat at night. However, now that he is used to the schedule we let him decide when he is ready to eat for his mid-night feeding. Usually he wakes up at 2-2:30 am on the dot, though.


• 6 am, wake up and feed him and get him up for the day.

It only took a few days for him to get into this schedule. He did MUCH better than I expected and it has been a huge blessing. Now he gets 8 hours of sleep at night consistently and when DH and I take turns with the shifts we both get much better sleep. Backing up a bit, I must confess that the four large books that I had to read were none other than the entire Twilight series... and yes I am referring to the ridiculously popular (amongst teen girls) series who's first book was recently made into a movie. Funny thing is, I got DH hooked on them too and together we read all 4 books in 8 days! And then rushed out to see the movie as soon as we were finished. It is painful to admit that I succumbed to the series but then again DH and I are also HUGE Harry Potter fans. I was a sorry sight on the day the last Harry Potter book came out trying to track it down on CD so Cory and I could listen to it together. But this blog is about adoption, not the less impressive moments of my life :)

Well, I will leave it at that for the evening. But I hope to get back to blogging at least once a week now. I have quite a list of topics that I really want to write about and I am even hoping to incorporate some guest blogging. Cross your fingers I'll have the time to follow through and that it won't be another month before I blog again!