Cat Naps Among 4-Month-Old's Diverse Talents

As Micah approaches the 4-month mark on Saturday, his talents are becoming more numerous.

Consider that my son has mastered the following:

Cat naps: Micah used to take several hours-long naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Now, he's good after a half-hour, particularly in the afternoon. So much for the naps that Julie (aka Mom) needs, eh, buddy?

Conversations: We visited Julie's parents and grandparents on Sunday, and Micah had a ball at lunch after church services. He sat in his car seat for a while at the restaurant, yakking it up with me and anyone around him who would listen. I have a feeling he had a pretty broad audience. Of course, he got passed around among the family members. He smiled and laughed, giving them quite a performance as well. 

Rail riding: Micah has yelled at us in the night on several occasions recently. What did we discover upon entering his room? A leg sticking between a set of railings on his crib. He's fine, of course. How he got there is something we've yet to determine.

But this poses a dilemma. Used to be, you could set up cloth bumpers around the perimeter of the crib to protect the child from running into the bars. But we were told in that bumpers can be a suffocation hazard. So we've displayed the bumpers—they're just placed on the outside of the crib, below the mattress and right above the floor. That won't keep stray limbs away.

For now, we'll try to keep him in the center of the crib and monitor him closely overnight.

Don't worry. He makes sure we get at least a couple of opportunities to do that each night.