Five Months

Moose, you are five months old and counting and you are growing like a weed. At your five month check up you weighed in at nearly eighteen pounds and at 26.5 inches you've outgrown the height limit on your infant car seat. You are thriving on a diet of little more than mama milk, since you're still entirely unimpressed with baby food. Every couple of days I try again to get you to eat some, in hopes that maybe you'll warm up to it eventually, only to be met with complete disinterest. You'll open your mouth for me once or twice and then you've moved on to crumpling up your bib and working on shoving that in your mouth, gripping the spoon so tightly that I can't pry it from your fingers, or craning your neck around to see what your sister might be up to. I've got my work cut out for me!

You are going through a very sensory stage and your arms seem to have a mind of their own. You hold them out straight and tense and waggle them around until you feel something and then your little fingers grip it as tight as tight can be. The ultimate goal, of course, is to move whatever you've managed to grasp close enough to your mouth to get a good taste of it. You are SO strong. Recently you pulled a straw from my drink and I had a really difficult time prying it out of your hand so I could finish my drink. You're particularly fond of Sofie's hair and manage to get a fistful of it nearly every time she leans over to smother you with kisses. You're lucky she's a benevolent soul!

New tricks you've been working on this month include blowing spit bubbles (this keeps you quite entertained!), sitting up (more and more steadily each day), trying really hard to get up onto your hands and knees, and playing with your socks (more accurately your shoes or socks with the goal of getting one off and into your mouth.)

You are a rotten sleeper, waking up every three or four hours throughout the night. You do NOT like your crib and as much as I've tried to get you used to it you'll almost never sleep for more than an hour in it. You still sleep pretty soundly in your swing (we should've bought rechargeable batteries!) but somewhere along the line, I literally have no recollection of how it even happened, you managed to become an almost permanent fixture in our bed. Now I'm not going to say that the arrangement is getting me much more sleep, as it is certainly poor quality sleep at best, and as I type this sentence I am concurrently brainstorming strategies to get you sleeping better in your own space, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not enjoying your warm little body lying next to me, or that it never strikes me how sweet it is to smell your milky breath each time I stir. You are my little baby, probably my last baby, and I want to savor each snuggly moment I have with you, even if it means waking up crink-necked each morning!