5 Months

Chunky Monkey,

You've had a big month!! You are such a smart, funny little boy. Every day has been more and more fun with you. This was by far the most challenging bear photo, and we honestly didn't get any great ones before we gave up. You're not quite mobile but moving enough to fall over every two seconds. You're distracted by your toes and your hands and finally noticed that you were sitting on something soft.

Not too bad. You can see he's going for the toes. 

This is how he spent most of his time. Falling over because of grabbing the toes or fingers in the mouth. 

Woah. What IS this thing?! It was literally the first time he's been aware of the bear.

He's over the photo shoot.

At least we can see the 5? 

Here's some highlights from your past month:

You've started eating real foods. You started with avocado and weren't quite sure about it. But you haven't turned down anything yet. Here's what you've tried so far: avocado, banana, applesauce, sweet potato (by far your favorite!), green beans. We've got some sweet peas, chicken and turkey for you to try too. Thanks to our friend Isaac for sharing some of the baby food he didn't need anymore!  (and update since I first wrote this: you and green beans are not friends. We think they made your belly hurt big time. And we were up every 3 hours with you last night while figuring that out!)

Yay sweet potatoes! 

We're starting some basic sign language with you. It's a bummer that you won't start signing back to us for probably two more months at the earliest but I think it'll be worth it in the end. Every day we're using signs for mommy, daddy, milk, all done and kitty. When you're having real food I'm also adding in "more."

You ROLLED OVER!! And back to front first, not the easier front to back. Such an over achiever. You stopped wanting to be swaddled about 3 weeks ago. You started sleeping on your side almost immediately. You also started going backwards with your awesome sleeping habits (apparently there's a 4-month sleep regression). But I think it's back on track now. We've found out you're pretty darn good at putting yourself back to sleep in the middle of the night. You're still getting up once to eat in the middle of the night but I don't mind so much the extra snuggling as long as you go back to sleep for a couple hours. The only challenge now is that you want to sleep on your face. Not just your stomach, but face down on the bed. You are sucking on the sheets, which is gross. And causing these huge wet spots on the bed. And you're flipping so quickly we can't keep up trying to flip you back. We have actually seen you flip from front to back a couple times on the monitor now...but it doesn't make us feel any better. We're trying to just let you do your thing but I seriously can't stop watching you on the monitor!! You've also gotten your legs stuck in the crib slats twice now. Crazy boy!!

On your face. Why can't you just turn your head to the side and make us all feel better?

You have this insane new screeching noise that is seriously ear splitting. You think it's pretty hilarious, which I guess is a good thing. It really bothers the cats though. Vivy has come in to look in your crib and check on you several times now because you really do sound like you are seriously hurt or something. But we can see on the monitor you're just chatting away to yourself in there.

You are getting little fuzzy hairs all over your head. And, they're BLONDE!!!!! I'm pretty excited about that. I'm hoping you stay my little mini-me as long as possible. :) Unfortunately your little chunk of long hairs at the top of your head have still not fallen out so you have some serious comb-over issues when you wake up.

This is a pretty good shot of the long combover hairs in back. 

We also had you dedicated at Crossroads at the end of April. It was a really nice ceremony and there were lots of friends and family there to support us and you. You didn't cry at all which was a relief--it had been a cranky couple days beforehand!

Your current most-used nicknames are roly poly, chunky monkey and silly willy. What can I say? Your mama likes alliteration! You're solidly wearing 9 month clothes too. You're making all your friends look like peanuts.