This morning I went into Chance's room to get him up and found this. He turns over sometimes when he is playing on the floor but not every time and although he could be much more mobile with this new skill he doesn't seem interested in rolling around the room. However he must be practicing much more than I thought. This was such a Kodac moment I couldn't pass it up. He has rolled himself over on his tummy sucking on his thumb and holding onto his blankie with the other hand and look how little he looks in that big crib. He is growing but he is still a little guy.

Chance laughed! It was so cute. Scott was laughing and talking to him and he just smiled and laughed. Then he did it again when Scott was laughing and trying to tickle him. Just thought I would share the news.

The other day we went to City Park, which is only about 10 minutes by car from the house, to sit in the shade and clean Scott’s motorcycle. With a little Goo Gone and a scotch brite pad you can get almost anything off the bike. Chance and I just sat out under the oak trees while Scott worked on the motorcycle. It was a great day and fun to get out of the house. City Park is a huge park between New Orleans and Metairie. There are large open spaces of grass and trees along with baseball, football, soccer and rugby fields, a sculpture garden and the New Orleans Museum of Art all located in City Park. It’s a great place to hangout outside. It didn’t take long to finish cleaning the bike and I took these pictures of Scott and Chance after it was done. In one of them you can see the band-aids still on Chance’s legs because I don’t want to hurt him by taking them off they always stay on for days, till they soak off in the tub.

Sorry I haven’t been updating regularly but when Scott is in town we spend as much time together as possible and some days that doesn’t leave time for updating. On Tuesday Chance had his four month check up and shots. He is 17.2 pounds and 24.5 inches tall though I think that last number is off because if you look back at his two month check up they said he was 25 inches tall then and I am sure he didn’t shrink but that is the number they told me this time. He was pretty good for the appointment though he cried a little when the Doctor took him to examine him. He spends so much time with me he has started doing a whining crying thing when he goes to someone else for a minute. The Doctor said babies usually don’t start showing a preference for Mom or Dad till six months. He checked out perfect with his Doctor even mentioning how alert and strong he was. He kept trying to push off of the table when she would lay him down to look at him. He got his vaccinations as well, three shots in all. He didn’t cry very much after them I just picked him up and held him for a minute and everything was ok. He goes for his next appointment at six months in June. I think we are going to push it back to July though because we are going to visit Scott’s family in Portland at the end of June. He slept most of the rest of the day after his appointment. Only waking up to eat and have his diaper changed then taking another long nap. He slept a bit more on Wednesday too but by Thursday he was back to his old self playing and generally being more active in the world. We bought a cable at Radio Shack today so I hope to have better videos up soon, Yeah! Here are some pictures of Chance trying to eat rice cereal again. I have been feeding him some every morning for a week now and for the last two days he has actually been opening his mouth when I move the spoon toward him and it looks like some of it is going down his throat instead of all of it coming back out on his face. That’s a big step, he’ll be eating like a pro in no time. In the last one, just look at
that mug.

Pictures of the Mini

A lot of things happened yesterday. First, we bought a new car. My car had 104,000 miles on it, it needed a new wind shield, tires and the A/C had just gone out not to mention the amount of money it costs to get a car registered in Louisiana. With all that in mind we set out looking for a new car. We drove all the way to Baton Rouge to look at a Mini Cooper because that is the only dealership from Atlanta to Houston. The trip was nice, we took a back road for a part of it which was a nice drive. When we got there it sort of all fell into place and we came home with a new car. The only draw back to the new car is space. It gets amazing gas milage, handles well, is very nice on the inside and when you are driving it, it doesn't feel like a small car. It has a solid feel to it, There are only two doors, The car seat fits fine in the back but is a little hard to get in and out of the car. Other than that it's great. We got a three year lease on it and it comes with a 36,000 mile everything warranty so all my oil changes, windshield wipers, tires, everything is free for the first 36,000 miles which is absolutely wonderful. It doesn't bother me that the dealership is in Baton Rouge where I have to go for my free services because that gives me an excuse to geocache up that way. I haven't taken any pictures of the car yet but when I do I will post them.
Moving right along, Chance turned 4 months old yesterday! He is getting so big and he talks a lot always squealing and babbling. Here are the milestones that I copied from ivillage for four months. He is doing all of these things. He isn't rolling all over the place but he does roll over most every time I put him on the floor one way or the other. It's like he gets tired of being on his tummy so he will roll over but then when he gets tired of being on his back he won't roll back over he just cries because he wants to get up.

By the end of month four a baby typically:
May sleep about six hours at night before waking (total sleep typically 14 to 17 hours)
Rolls over (usually stomach to back is first)
Sits with support
Lifts head up 90 degrees
Can follow a moving object for a 180-degree arc
Babbles and amuses self with new noises
Responds to all colors and shades
Explores objects with his mouth
Recognizes a bottle or breast
Communicates pain, fear, loneliness and discomfort through crying
Responds to a rattle or bell

Also yesterday he ate rice cereal for the first time (see pictures). I think most of it ended up on the outside of his mouth but he didn't hate it. And today he even opened his mouth a couple times when I brought the spoon toward him. He can't be getting very much of it down his throat but he is doing good and it's worth the funny factor anyway. Well, he just woke up so I will add more later.

While getting things together to go for a stroll today I laid Chance down in his crib with a few toys to keep him occupied. In a couple minutes I was ready and went back in his room to get him when I found him asleep. I guess he was tired and wanted to play all at the same time because he was asleep with his toy still in his hand. It was of course so cute I had to take pictures. On another note, Scott is coming home tonight. I thought it was Friday but I was wrong it is Thursday and I am so happy. He has been away from home for over two months. Also, Chance’s appointment got moved from Friday to Tuesday so there won’t be an update on that till then. Scott doesn’t get in till 8:40pm so we are just going to mess around here, and go on our little stroll around the quarter when Chance wakes up. Chance is 17 weeks old today too, He is still so small but getting bigger all at the same time. Sometimes I sort of see a flash of what he will look like when he is older. He definately has a little personality now and things that he likes and that he dislikes. It's great learning who he is. He was smiling and pursing his lips in his sleep. This last picture is a new face that he makes. He pulls his lips tight and thin like he going to hum and sometimes he does hum and sometimes he just makes the face. It's cute because when he does it his cheeks get all chubby and round.

Over the last few months Rosco has been really great with Chance and with all the changes that have come in the house. He doesn't always get walked at the same time everyday and he doesn't get as much attention as he used to even though we try. He sleeps in his cage every night and we put him in his cage when we leave the house. Not because he is destructive but because he is so powerful that when he does get a hold of something even though it is rare he destroys whatever it is. Used to when we wanted to put him in the cage you would have to get a hold of his collar and drag him into the cage. He uses passive resistance and would just sit there or lay there and let you drag him. Over the past few months though he seems to understand that I can't always drag him. Sometimes I need him to go in the cage and I am holding Chance so he has started going in the cage all by himself. I just tell him to get in the cage and he goes. Rosco is a wonderful dog. He licks Chance's feet and smells him but then just goes about his business. Today, when I told Rosco to get into his cage he walked away from me, I told him to get in his cage again and evidently he didn't want but he knew I couldn't chase him around the house so instead of running around he hid. In the bathtub. I've never seen him get into the bathtub all by himself (you have to give him a boost when it's bath time) but today he just hopped right in and sat there looking at me.

Today we went geocaching again since we also went geocaching yesterday. It has been keeping us busy and for ones that are close together in parks and things I jsut put Chance in his sling which he loves and we walk in the park between caches. After writing the other day about the sample blanket
I wasn't sure it was easy to understand so of course I took pictures to illistrate what I was trying to say. In the first two he is with his regular blanket (Winnie-The-Pooh) with the sample blanket over the top. Then I went in to his room just now and found his alseep like this last picture. Now you can see what I mean and why I give him the sample blanket. He grabs it and pulls it up to his head . He has been eating more and more he is up to about 37 ounces per day. His 4 month check up is on Friday where he will get shots and I hope the go ahead to start solids. That will be so much fun I am looking forward to trying to feed him with a spoon. Rice Cereal here we come!

I just walked into Chance's room he is taking a nap and when I looked at him he was so cute I couldn't stand it and had to come out and share some pictures with you all even though these are totally unrelated to him sleeping. The little red outfit is a picture I took on Thursday and the other two are ones from Friday when he was in his stroller. We are planning to go out today even though it is a little cold we are just going to wonder around for a while, listen to music and see the sights. Chance rolled over again today from tummy to back this time. He is catching on slowly but surely. Also, he has started really

grabbing onto things like blankets and shirts and my hair. He seems to like to grab sloft things more than hard toys so far. I think it is because he can get a good hold on soft things and sometimes toys still fall out of his hand. So, he has started to really like his little Ollie Bear and at night I have been wrapping him in a blanket and then putting one of his little sample blankets (that's what I call them they are really small, about one foot square, mini blankets.) over the top of that so when he grabs his blanket he is only getting one of the small ones to pull up to his face. He has been falling asleep with the little blanket held fast in his hands. In this one picture Chance is talking to me, I'm not sure what he is saying but he really wanted to tell me something maybe it was "Boy, Mom this blanket sure is tasty!"

Chance turned 16 weeks old last Thursday and has been sleeping through the night for the last two nights. I don’t know if it is luck or genetics but Chance is a good baby. He has only been waking up once per night for about a month now but the last two nights I put him in his room around 8pm and he didn’t make a noise until 7am yesterday and 7:45 this morning. Both nights I woke up around 2am because my internal clock is now set to get up at that time but when I listened there wasn’t a peep from Chance’s room so I went back to sleep. Yeah!
We went out yesterday just wondering around, it is French Quarter Fest here and so there are bands on about every corner and arts and crafts being sold as well as some great food being sold from booths all through the quarter. We started out looking for geocaches here in the quarter and ran into a really nice couple form Clearwater, Florida who were also geocaching, it was great having some adult conversation and they brought us luck in finding a couple geocaches I hadn’t found before. They also took our picture, thanks guys.
It rained over night and is still wet here but I think we will go out and try to get some weird but tasty food today.
In case you haven’t noticed I have playing dress up with Chance to keep myself amused and so yesterday when we went out I gave him a little fohawk, I’m not sure that you can really see it in these pictures but it’s there and it is soooooo cute. This is the progression of our day, the first picture is just before we left yesterday morning then the one the couple took of us and then when we got home in the afternoon.

First just look at this outfit, a friend of mine at the Barnes and Noble here gave me some clothes that had belonged to her little boy and in that lot there where two pair of overalls. This is the first time I tried one of them on him and he is just super cute. We had a big day today, this morning Chance slept in till 8:00 am so we had plenty of sleep to start the day. The maintenance men finally came (it's been two weeks) to fix the oven and to my surprise they brought a brand new one so we have a new stove. It makes the kitchen look a lot better, the white really brightens up that corner. Then we went to get the mail which was a nice walk today the weather was nice today. Then this evening we went to the Geocaching event. The local geocachers get together once a month but this is the first time I have gotten the opportunity to go (Scott does not geocache). It was at a little coffee shop, it was fun getting to put faces with screen names and real names with screen names. Chance helped find his first geocache when he was just a few weeks old you can check out our profile here
Chance was perfect and everyone said he was the cutest. There was another little boy there, he will be two years old next month. He had fun looking at Chance and saying "Hi" to the baby. Tomorrow we are going to go meet one of the geocachers from the meeting who is going to let us borrow her old GPS receiver as mine has been broken for some time now and I can't buy a new one quit yet. Then we can go Geocaching, Yeah!!
In these two photos of him taken today he is starring at one of his favorite things in the whole world...the ceiling fan. he will watch it when it is on and when it is off he doesn't care. He went from the first position in the first picture to this second position all by himself. He puts his feet down and pushes his butt up in the air and scoots down.

The last two mornings I was not awakened by cries from Chance's room but giggles and coos. I don't know how long he has been awake but I have gotten up both mornings around 7:10am. Now during both nighttime sleep and naps he is almost never in the same position as the one he was in when I put him to sleep. He is sideways or he has his head where his feet should be. It's crazy thinking about how small he is to be able to fit in that little crib sideways but here he is just hanging out playing with his mobile. He is so content just playing in there that when I walk in he jsut sort of looks over like "Hi there" and then goes back to playing. Of course usually that doesn't last too long and in a few minutes he says "pick me up"

So today is Easter and it is 44 degrees here that is really cold for us. I thought about not going out but in the end we did go out for a little while this morning. I put Chance in his fancy Easter outfit, bundled him up so he stayed warm and off we went. There is this really great parade that goes through the quarter, all the 'high society' ladies put on their Easter best and parade through the streets in carriages handing out stuffed animals to the children. This year however they cut it short due to the weather and we missed it entirely. I was a little bummed by this but there is always next year and the show must go on, so we just strolled around for a little while, got some coffee and came back home. But I couldn't let this cute outfit go to waste so of course we took tons of pictures. I sat him up between my flower and a little chickidy Grandma G sent to us for Easter. He is sitting pretty good with support now so I just propped him up. I didn't do an Easter basket or color eggs this year I know Chance wouldn't get it and being here by myself it would just be a waste of precious time but hopefully next year we can do all the fun Easter things.
After the "photo shoot" Chance was tired so I layed him down in his crib where he pretty quickly fell off to sleep. It is sad to think that this is probably the only time he will wear this outfit, he grows out of them so fast. Also it is too cute that the shorts have pockets. I don't know what 3 - 6 month old would ever need pockets but it's cute that they are there.

Being a stay at home Mom has brought a lot of bordom for me. I like to get out and do things and have fun so with Chance and me just hanging otu at the house a lot of the time I have to find things to keep him happy and me busy so...
Today we played dress up. This is a little build-a-bear that I built right before Chance was born his name is Lenny. So as you can see I took Lenny's clothes off and put them on Chance.


He didn't mind at all, Lenny or Chance and so I put the little pants on him and the little leather jacket. I wouldn't call it the perfect fit but we had fun. He's my little tough guy. Chance is saying "Bring it on, buddy" It is cold out again today so since we want to go out tomorrow for Easter we are staying in today to save up our energy.

Chance was a little grumpy today just one of those days I guess. It is cold so we haven't been able to sit outside and he really likes that, It's also an easy thing for me to do with him to keep him happy. I got him these Baby Einstein block the other day he really seems to like the Red one which rattles, the yellow one has a duck on it that quacks when you push on it and he likes that one too the other ones he could take of leave at this point. The first picture I am helping him sit up and he is grabbing for the block the second picture is what happens when I let go of him. He slides over onto my leg. He also rolled from his back to his front today. Just once and it happened so fast I almost missed it but he did it all by himself.

I took a video with my digital camera when we were in Florida of Chance playing in his Gymini, there is no sound and the quality is horrible but if you would like to check it out go here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4MkrPo0i_Y I am going to get Scott to set up the good video camera here so I can take videos and put them up for all to see. Those will be worth watching.

Ok I know this first picture is a sad face but he is so cute no matter what he does I had to take the picture. He does the little pouty face like I mentioned before but it melts my world. Plus this time no matter how bad it looks it was really a fake cry because this next photo came after the sad face. He was just upset
over somethig I don't understand but wasn't too bad after all. This is his new sleep sack that I got him because he was growing out of all his other sleep wear but they make these all the way up to 18 months so he should fit into these for a while. We had lots of fun at the Kindermusic class it was great to be able to go to a class first so we could see what it was all about. there were about seven other Mom and Baby sets we all just sang songs and did different things with the baby's bounced and rocked and jingled bells and did little baby massage and point out noses and toes to the music. It was fun. We could start in the middle of this class but it doesn't seem cost effective to start now so I think we will sign up for the next class. I don't think it will start for a few months but we will do it then.

Also guess what Chance is 15 weeks old today. He is getting to be an old man. ok not really but in the picture where he is laying on the changing table I think he looks so big. The other day I weighed him on the scale here at the house and he weighed 14 and a half pounds. He is growing. I know he is getting taller too. The different clothes companies have very different views on the size of a 3 - 6 month old so some of them are too short for him and other fit just fine. We went to Babys-R-Us yesterday after the class and bought Chance his Easter outfit. We are going to go down to Bourbon Street and watch the Kistoric French Quarter Easter Parade, it was started by the daughter of Count Arnaud so long ago no one on the internet seems to want to venture a guess.

Last night Chance was running a little bit of a fever only up to 99.8 he slept a bit more than usual yesterday but didn't act sick while he was awake. His temperature was back down this morning but he seems a little stuffy so maybe he got a little cold somewhere. He seems to be handling it well though, he isn't cranky or anything. He does this cute thing now when you get a bottle ready he will open his little mouth in an 'O' when you start to move it toward him. He knows what a bottle does. The weather is crazy around here, yesterday it was so terribly hot and today it is cold, Weather.com says it is 61 degrees right now. Looks like it is going to be cold for the next week or so. That will be good to Easter because his little outfit has a sweater to match.

I put this last picture on here so you can all see where I regularly keep Chance. Right between the sink and the cereal. It also looks in the picture like his head is really close to that corner but really it's not and his little noggin is safe.

We went to my Doctor’s appointment today, all went well with that. Chance seems to be a social guy for about four people and then when that fifth person walks over and says “well aren’t you a cute little guy?” Oh something of the like Chance just screams. Then it takes just a minute to calm him back down but after that if anyone comes close he makes that little wimper cry like he’s about to explode but hasn’t quite been pushed over the edge yet. When I got in the room I put Chance in his carrier and rocked him till he went to sleep and he slept through the rest of the visit.

Dr. Reitan was finally able to see him since she missed him at my 6-week check up so we took pictures with her. It was cool to get this picture, I am going to put it in his baby book and take one back to the office for them to add to their ‘Baby Board’.
Chance tried to roll over again today but didn’t quite make it. He is getting closer though he turns on his side and turns his head then wiggles his legs he is starting to get some leverage going but just not enough yet. He wiggles all the time now. He wiggles on the changing table and in his crib he will wiggle all the way around so his head is where his feet should be and if I don’t right him he will spin all the way back around.

He wiggles in the bouncy chair and has started wiggling in the car seat too. If he is sitting in it but isn’t strapped down he puts his little feet down then lifts his butt up and scoots it down till his head is almost to where his little butt should be. If I let him keep going he would probably scoot right out of it. He also scoots around when you put him on the ground but with no real purpose that I can tell. He is handling tummy time better. He will do it for longer and by longer I mean 7 minutes. Strangely enough he doesn’t try to roll over from tummy to back when he is done with tummy time he just gets frustrated and starts to fuss. He will learn soon enough. He was a wonderful angle baby today, I hope he does the same tomorrow during our sit in on the Kindermusic class. I’ll let you all know of course.

Look how manly he looks in this last picture with him baggy pants and his manly chest sticking out.

We went to walmart today to do grocery shopping and spend a gift card Chance received from a couple friends of mine, Carmen and Connie. It is so hot here and with the air conditioner out in the car that makes for an unplesant trip most of the time. Chance does pretty good though, I try to plan the trips early in the morning. He was such a happy baby today. Talking alot and just in general awake and happy today. I left him in his crib playing today while I changed out his diaper genie and folded his clothes and put them away. He just layed there and played and played. He watched his mobile and talked and talked to it. He played with this toy I have hanging on the crib. I have it hanging so I can pull it to the outside of the crib when it is sleeping time and put it in the crib for play time. He got ahold of the little rings on the bottom of it all by himself. I love this little outfit too. This first picture is us out on the balcony wearing his little visor. He is too cute in it. Tell me how you couldn't love that little face.