Five months

Our Charliebug is 5 months old already. Wow.

Let's think... what's new with Charlie? Well, he has discovered he has toes, and that like his fingers, they are darn fascinating. And his new talent? Blowing raspberries!

He continues his love/hate relationship with tummy time and rolling over. A few days ago I put him down and he promptly rolled over, so I put him back on his belly. Rolled over again. We repeated this six times! But in the days since... put him on his belly and he'll smile at himself in his mirror for a while, chew on some toys, and then put his head down and cry in frustration. I guess he's going to roll over only when he feels like it.

We are going to be starting this boy on solids soon. He is absolutely fascinated when we're eating; he watches so closely you start to feel a little guilty that you're eating in front of him! Zach never did that, so this is a new experience for us. We've given him a few tastes of ice cream, and he loved it - didn't even seen to react to the cold or the unfamiliar taste. Put a spoon near his face and his mouth opens. Put a plate of food in front of him and he'll do his best to eat it!

I also had been trying to slowly introduce formula, to make it easier for Scott, babysitters, and occasionally me to give him a bottle. He was doing fine, until the contents reached a 50/50 mix, and then he wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with that bottle. So I'm back to the drawing board, sneaking the formula in a bit slower. Little stinker.

We're at the stage where everything goes into his mouth - toys, blankets, towels, your arm. We don't feel any teeth yet though, so I think it's just the usual exploration.

On the ever-important sleep front, we've been having a bad stretch. I think I missed the ideal window of getting him into a good nap routine, since we've been on the go so much the last month+. His nighttime sleep patterns started deteriorating when we were in MT and have just gotten worse; we've been up twice per night for several weeks now. And boy, is it hard to go back when you'd adjusted to at least 8-9 hours at a stretch.

So I've been doing my best to get this boy the naps in his bed he deserves. As everyone warned me, it is tougher with the second one, because life just gets in the way! But we're making progress, and the last couple nights he has woken up after sleeping 4-5 hours, made some minor complaints, and gone back to sleep for another 4 or so. Hurray, and please let the progress continue!

This is a fun time, and we're really enjoying watching our little guy discover the world with those big eyes!