August 1993
Brandon
At four months old your personality is really starting to show! This month you really began filling out and made big strides in both your height and weight. You’re a great sleeper, easy going, and content with pretty much anyone who wants to hold you.
You’re able to pick up a toy and put it in your mouth while keeping yourself occupied. Since 3 ½ months you’ve been trying to pull yourself up on things and explore the world around you.
You can now laugh out loud and when you smile the sweetest sounding giggle comes out of your mouth. You manage to put a smile on everyone’s face! Oh, how I miss the sound of your infectious laugh and the sweetness of your precious face.
At four months old you received your second dose of the live, oral polio vaccine (OPV). You wouldn’t require another dose until 15 months but of course that never happened, as you didn’t survive past 7 months. At the time in our state, it was required your child must meet Michigan’s immunization requirements to enroll in any nursery, daycare, preschool or headstart program, and public or non-public school. You weren’t currently enrolled in a daycare setting, nor did we have plans to put you in one anytime soon, but we still felt it was necessary to keep up with your childhood vaccinations. Thankfully my immune system continued to protect you and you never contracted polio from the live vaccine. Although it was rare, tragically this did happen in the past, where the weakened version that was contained in the live virus caused disease to others without a working immune system and because of that a change was made in the US. Inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is the only polio vaccine that has been given in the United States since 2000.
