UpRooted: 4 Months

Cuatro is 4 months old, and he is officially a giant! At least, he's a giant compared to the Baird baby who was born Friday. That's how it always go. The baby is born and you are in the thick of the crying, feeding, rocking routine - weary and sleepless - and all of a sudden you wake up and the fourth trimester is over and you have a little individual in your arms.

Our little individual is often called a miniature man - he has a deep and probing way of looking at things, and then when you least expect it he breaks the solemnity with a face-wide grin. His smile reminds me of Songbird's - broad and freely given. He has also started laughing here and there - especially when being tickled on his tummy or cheeks. And the boy has no lack of love - in fact, I'm pretty sure he will grow up thinking he hangs the moon with all the doting he receives from the 5 other people in his family. :)

The day he turned 4 months he started rolling over in earnest, but he did it in a non-traditional back-to-tummy sort of way. Then he started doing it compulsively, but he didn't like being on his tummy and didn't know how to roll back over. He still hasn't gotten the nack of rolling from tummy to back, though I think he will be doing it by the week's end.

Last weekend he experienced his first snow / ice storm and took his first walk in sub-freezing temperatures (which didn't last long because the wind was unbearably whipping in our faces). The freezing rain started after dark on Friday and continued through the night. When we woke on Saturday morning we were encrusted in ice. The older children had a great time making ice skating rinks and sledding with an older neighbor up the street, while Raindrop and I huddled in the warmth of the wood stove that Papa kept well-fed and worked on painting and beading. The ice kept the church from opening and the schools from opening, so our already long-seeming vacation kept going and going. But the children got their snow.

Now, exactly one-week later, we are hiking the mountain and shedding our layers because it is 70 degrees outside. I keep having to remind myself that it is still the middle of January.

The Boggs came by for a visit, and the warm was welcomed by all. Elisha and I took a 40th birthday walk together, and the kids made fires, and whittled, and chased chickens, and felted, and cooked, and dreamed. And our souls were fed.