Today Noah had his 4 month check up. He is a big boy already!
Noah is 15 lbs 14 oz - 7.2 kg, 25 1/2 inch =  64.77 cm, and his head is  44 cm. With height and weight he is in the 60% range the head is in the 80 % …
Maria came with me and documented the visit with great photos.
Noah was really brave and did not say much when he got his shots. Good boy!

Today was my first day back at work. One day after Victor's birthday. I only now realized how bad this timing was. Poor Victor – we hardly celebrated… Well, I hope next year Noah will give him a hand made gift or something to make up for this year.

Going back to work was not as hard as I expected. I guess I kind of prepared myself for it. I missed Noah of course, but it felt good too to feel "needed" in a different way. People at work really welcomed me back. Also, I am only there three days a week which makes it much easier.

I still have to figure out how to schedule in the pumping of Noah's milk. I am supposed to pump 3 times, as I am away from him for 9 or 10 hours, but after 2 times I feel like I am totally empty. The pumping sessions go well though, sometimes I pump 8 oz.

Right now, I feed him twice in the morning (between 5 and 6, then at 8 just before I leave, after work I rush home to be there in time for the night feeding. I leave at 5.30 instead of 6, and I drive the car home to get there as quickly as possible. When I arrive (on a good day at 6.50 or 7 ) Noah is already ready for bed, I feed him and he goes right to sleep. He used to eat at 6.30 and be in bed at 7, on the days that I work bed time is half hour later, and I think this half hour is quite hard for Maria or Victor when they are with him.

At night I get to see him between 1 and 2 am also. So we do get 4 feedings together. Well, time will tell how future schedules will work out.

And Victor was so sweet the other day when he said to me "Wow you are wearing those pants again, and look how they fit you. They were tight on you before you got pregnant." Yeah it is really true, I think parts of my body are slimmer than before now. Of course there is the belly that needs some help, but hey I always had a belly, as long as I could think. And now my belly is offset by nice big boops J

Anyway, what I am trying to say is, either I am really luckily bouncing back into some kind of ok shape, or I just don't care so much any more. I know that my belly, my body, helped bringing an amazing kid into the world, and if that makes me less mannequin like, so be it. I also know that I should make an effort to get back into some exercise routine. I do have these great tapes. Sylvia got me one for my baby shower, they are exercises I do with Noah and they are really great. Not only have they helped me be physical active, while I spend time with my sunshine, also it has told me a lot about helping Noah to exercise too. He now has REAL fun doing this tape. My mom got me a second tape for Christmas, so now we do have some choice and even more incentive to be active.

I still feel a little short on breath when I walk longer distances (especially caring him) or when I walk the stairs at work. So I know that I have some catching up to do. But overall I have to say, nature knows what it is doing. A healthy pregnancy prepares you for the physical challenges of motherhood and breastfeeding I think really helped my body loosing that extra fat that was stored to help nurture Noah.

Grandma Lee came for a visit and it seemed like Noah recognized her right away. He was smiling at her, laughing and playing with her. So suddenly she is like "look he is standing". And really, he was proudly showing off how he was able to hold himself on his legs. All that Lee did was helping him balance. He was so fascinated by this new accomplishment that he kept requesting from her to be helped up to standing.

I love the fact that he learns so many new things from everyone in the family. The visits and attention seems to bring out the best in him.

Now we only have to watch that he learns crawling before walking, as Ramona wisely pointed out. But as his tummy time is really successful, he can lift his head high and hold up for a long time, I am not too worried about it.

Noah's godparents are back for a holiday visit!! He was ecstatic to see them, and he got to spend Christmas and New Year's with them. We spend a lot of time inside, went outside only for short walks, as it got cold and we also wanted to relax a little bit. I think he enjoys all the attention and playtime he gets inside. We went to the NY Aquarium one day though and instead of taking his morning nap he watched with big eyes the colorful fish or the big walrus in the huge tanks. It was so cute to see.

During the time at home, Alexander and Ramona showed Noah all the things one can do with a tongue.  Now he is going crazy touching his upper lip with the tongue, and making all kinds of tongue movements and sounds. He looks so cute doing so, and it is a major step towards speaking I believe.

Today I gave Noah his last medicine. For five days he had to take a cough medicine once a day and inhale every 6 hours with this Inhaler. He was a real trooper, smiling throughout his cold. I think it was harder on me than on him, especially because it was me who gave it to him …

So now that he is over, he is also a little bit stronger, his immune system had its first test. Go Noah!

Noah seems to be growing by the minute.  We are now switching from the smallest newborn size of clothes to the 3-6 month clothes. Let's see how long they will fit him. We still did not buy any clothes, some of them are baby shower gifts and the others are hand-me-downs from Christian and Alex - great cute clothes!!! What a stylish boy.