4 months, 1st shorts...

Yesterday, the 29th, Luke was officially 4 months old!! Our little guy is SO big! He's finally big enough to wear shorts. Before now, his short little legs have made him look like he was wearing clown pants whenever I tried to put shorts on him, so I just stopped trying. Yesterday I decided to give it another try with the smallest shorts I could find. They fit! Then I wanted to put a shirt on him, too, instead of a onesie. The first shirt was so small that he looked like a belly dancer. The second one, this orange and white one, fit snugly over his belly and only just down to his waistline, but I decided to give it a go because it was just so cute. I took Luke downstairs and insisted that we take pictures. Well he just looked like such a big boy with his shorts and collared shirt!!! After the first picture, though, it was hard to keep the shirt down over his big ol' belly, so we had to go back upstairs and put on a bigger shirt!
Here are the pictures of our handsome little man in his big boy clothes!

So big!

Looking like an old man with the belly hangin' out.

Just can't keep that thing covered up.

Happy guy!

Cereal: Lesson Learned.

With all of Luke's recent sleep issues and growth-spurt-induced-binge-eating, I thought (and everyone was telling me) that maybe giving Luke some cereal would help him to sleep better and me to stop feeling like Bessie the cow. So I called the pediatrician and asked if I could start cereal a little early, since our 4-month check up wasn't for another couple weeks. The nurse said sure, to give him cereal by spoon, then nurse him as I normally would just before bedtime. With magic-rice-sleeping-potion dreams, I followed directions, and Phil and I gave our munchkin his first serving of cereal while Phil's dad took a few pictures. We put Luke to bed with an especially full belly, and then a little later we tucked ourselves in bed, hoping for a miracle.....until 1 am when we were awoken by a screaming baby!! Oh well, I thought. The cereal wasn't the magic-maker that I thought it would be. The next night he got his second serving of cereal...and woke up twice during the night. The night after that he got his third serving...and woke up 3 times. The fourth night, being the smarty pants that I am, I realized that Luke had slept worse and worse since starting him on the cereal, so I decided to stop for a while. That was about 4 days ago. His sleeping at night got better, so today, being the smarty pants that I am, I decided to give him some cereal during the day instead of at night. While it proved to be a great photo-op, it has also proven to be a bad idea. The poor little guy has had such bad gas that it has woken him up all night, causing him to roll over to his back, which we all know is a HORRIBLE way to sleep, and thus cause for an all-out scream fest. The worst part is that I had observed (and smelled) an increase in Luke's gas during our first nighttime adventures with cereal, and had even witnessed with my own eyes him pulling his legs up underneath him to pass gas in his sleep, only to propel himself onto his back. Somehow, however, I had buried these sights and smells in my sleep-loving unconscious. WELL....tonight I can no longer deny what is so blatantly true--this child's digestive system is NOT ready for cereal. Sure, he may look like he's been eating Five Guys' cheeseburgers for a few months, but it's just not the case. The stinker is just a delicate little guy.

It looks like there won't be much sleeping in the Tatum house tonight.
Oh well. Lesson learned.
At least I got good pictures out of the deal.

Scenes from the very first cereal experiment.

And from today...
Here they are in chronological order:

Dude, like, why am I sitting here in my diaper?

What in the heck am I supposed to do with this stuff?

Uhhhh..Uhhhhh..Uh...Mom, I'm not too sure about this....

Wait! I like it!


If you're not going to hurry it up, I'll just eat my fingers, thank you very much.


Ew. This is some messy stuff.


Now that you wiped me down, I can do it myself.


That was tough. I need some thumb time.


I've had ENOUGH already! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!


No really. If you won't get me out, I'll get myself out.

First Time Downtown

Our little family was invited to a dinner club with some new friends at a restaurant downtown tonight. We realized after circling the restaurant 82 times trying to find a parking spot that it was Luke's first trip to downtown Indy...sooooo, we had to take pictures for the blog! Luke made friends with a woman named Lynn and played with her for most of the dinner, which was nice for Mom and Dad. After dinner we stopped on the street for a photo-op, and it just so happened that the most famous downtown landmark was right behind us. Luke and Mommy took a picture together, and it actually turned out pretty well (except for my squinty Bell's Palsy eye!!). I'd say that Luke had a great time on his maiden voyage, but he is currently screaming his head off upstairs in his bed because he is so overtired....I guess we took one too many circles around the restaurant.

Laughing with Lynn.

Flirting...

Playing with Mommy at the restaurant.

Mommy with her fair skinned offspring.

Rolling Over: A Love/Hate Relationship

Luke's been rolling over from his tummy to his back for a while now, but in the past few weeks his rolling over has been SO disruptive. He sleeps on his tummy, but LOVES to roll over to his back. The problem is that he can't yet roll back over to his tummy, and he HATES sleeping on his back. In fact, he pretty much refuses to sleep on his back. As a newborn, we tried to get him to sleep on his back for the first 2 weeks of his life. It was so awful that by the end of week 2, we gave up and let him sleep on his tummy. Since then Luke has fallen asleep on his back only 3 times, 2 of which were only after screaming until he was completely exhausted.

Over the past 3-ish weeks, his rolling over has been almost constant when he's in his crib. We used to be able to put him down awake, and he'd fall asleep on his own after a few minutes. Now if we do that, he almost always flips over right away. He'll suck on his fingers and talk to himself for a little while until he realizes that he is really tired. Then he starts crying. Then he starts screaming. Usually, no matter how many times we flip him back to his tummy, he just flips back over to his back....and he always ends up screaming! This has gone on for weeks now and has also affected his nighttime sleeping. He started sleeping through the night at 7 weeks. Around 14 weeks his rolling over started waking him up during the night (because he rolls over even in his sleep!) and it has continued. He'll be 17 weeks tomorrow. Sunday night he woke up 3 times during the night---1 am, 3 am, and 5 am. I don't think he woke up that much even as a newborn!! I started to think maybe his ears were bothering him and that was why he was rolling around and not sleeping. I took him to the doctor Monday and, of course, NO ear infection. The doctor said that we are just going to have endure letting him cry it out on his back until he either learns not to roll over or learns to roll back to his tummy. FUN.
The joys of parenthood...
If anyone out there has any advice, send it my way...and send up some prayers for us while you're at it!!

Luke in the HATEFUL position...and obviously that sleep positioner he's in does NOTHING to keep him from rolling over...

...but he's still smiling (once he's out of bed!).

Grammy and Papa T. come to visit!

Phil's parents came to see Luke this past weekend. It was so much fun sharing him with them. They love him so much! Papa T. hadn't seen Luke since a few days after he was born, so it was really exciting for him to see how much Luke has changed. I think Luke had a good time with his doting grandparents. They certainly had a good time with him!

Reading with Papa T.


Hanging out...Papa T. and his "best buddy".


Having lunch. I think Luke may have been negotiating getting some of Papa T.'s hamburger and Cheetos.


Learning his vowel sounds with Grammy.


The family favorite!!

New Adventures in the ExerSaucer...

While Grammy and Papa T. were here they put Luke in his ExerSaucer. Phil had done this once before, but Luke just kind of sat there. This time he was a little more into it. It was so fun to watch him discovering new things. His favorite part was probably sucking on the pretty colors on the padded seat cover!
(Thanks Kelly for giving us this fun toy!)

Oh how we love this little man, slobbery shirt and all!!!!

Playing with Papa T.

Why the heck is everyone looking at me?

Staring down the bee with Grammy.


Hmmm...what is this??

Guardmunk? Watchmunk?

Some people have a dog to protect their house...We have a chipmunk!
This silly chipmunk is on our front porch pretty much every morning. He just sits there and stares. Sometimes he's on the top step, sometimes on the second. He just hangs out...and the crazy thing is that I noticed him last fall. He left for the winter and then came back! He loves us, I guess. Well, maybe just our porch.