4 Months Tomorrow

(photos: our only warmish day so far this year my hat is knit by Gabriel and Oliver's is knit by me, book time in CA with my mom, out to brunch with my grandparents in CA)

Wowza! The little guy will be four months old tomorrow. Mostly during the last four months my sense of time has been way off. When Oliver turned one month old I couldn't believe it because it all still felt so new, and well, like I still didn't know what I was doing. Some days (or nights) feel oh so long and yet weeks and months zoom by. But this time I have to say that four months feels just about right. I feel like he is still a new little guy that we are getting to know and at the same time I feel like we are really getting the hang of things and I do know him and my new self better and better all the time. Four months, I feel kind of proud of us.

We are up in Celo right now and it snows at least a few flurries every day. So much snow on the ground and bellow freezing temperatures. A winter like I have never had in North Carolina but one that is closer to the winters of Gabriel's youth. Gabriel is away this month at wilderness medicine camp (a wilderness medicine rotation) in eastern Tennessee. We are apart this month except for 2 weekends that he is visiting us in Celo. Marilyn stayed with Oliver and I in Chapel Hill for a few days and then my mom came to Chapel Hill for a week and then we are up in Celo together with Bruce for the final two weeks that Gabriel and I are apart. Tough to be apart. It feels so cliche to say but it really is true that Oliver does something new pretty much every single day.

Two days ago Oliver started rolling over from his back onto his belly. He is so funny about it because he seems so determined to get onto his belly until he gets there and then he is like "oh crap! All that work and I ended up in my least favorite position ever." But when he squawks for me to flip him over and I oblige, he just flips himself right back onto his belly again.

Today his new trick is that during bath time he coughed a couple of times and I coughed back to him and then he coughed back at me and we repeated this back and forth exchange several more times. Other than smiling this is his first real imitation. Amazing.