4 Months

1)  Baby Sprout is now rolling over from his stomach to his back unassisted.  However, he continues to prefer standing.  When he's being held, his very favorite new trick is clutching a bundle of hair tightly in his tiny fists, and trying to eat it before it gets pulled away from him. 

2)  After learning to stuff his fist in his mouth last month, in the last few weeks he's refined his technique, and now energetically sucks on a few fingers at a time.  Periodically the sucking gets to be more vigorous than usual, and he will gag himself.

3)  Sprout's hand-eye coordination is much improved, and he grabs at things much better than before.  Not only can he actually hold on to an object for long enough to bring it to his mouth, but he can also reach out and pull said object to him if it's placed anywhere in his vicinity.  However, he isn't particularly loyal to any one toy, and mostly seems to enjoy being handed every available option in rapid succession.  He will feel the offering to determine if it shakes, rattles, or crinkles, then taste the object in question for a few minutes at most.  Then he gets bored, and turns to you with big eyes and plaintive little wails, demanding something else to entertain him.

4)  When Fuzzy was about 6 months old, his aunt sent him a little car walker, which got much use until he actually learned to walk by himself.  We placed Sprout in it quite a bit earlier than his brother, but he also receives significant enjoyment from being upright and self-propelled.  Although in his case, "self-propelled" might be a little generous.  His teensy tiny toes can just reach the ground, and he uses them to hop forward, while at the same time throwing both arms in the air frantically to propel himself as much as possible. 

5)  We have come up to the screeching milestone, when sweet burbling and quiet spit blowing turned overnight into sounds of delight loud enough to wake the dead.  Thankfully, the baby's banshee wailing period only lasted about two weeks, and he has, for the most part, subsided back into small squeaks of pleasure and occasional bear grunts of distress.

6) Bath-time continues to be Sprout's very favorite time, when he turns the full force of his toothless smile upon a captive audience.  For his first few months of life, the baby expressed his boundless enjoyment of the tub by frantically churning his arms and legs back and forth, generating tidal waves and splashing for his own enjoyment.  Now he instead tries to suck at the fingers and washcloth cleaning him.  The tightness of his grip on said washcloth seems to indicate the following train of thought: "Mmmm, most delicious washcloth...whyfore can I not have it always?"