Five Months

Little Jacob

 you are 5 months old!

It is pretty much impossible to get a picture of this kid when he's NOT smiling.  I love that.

At five months, you-

 

• weigh between 13 and 14 lbs.  You seem to be catching up and chunking out, including those lovable baby rolls on your legs.
•  are wearing size 1 diapers
• are wearing 3-6 month clothes  You actually fit better lengthwise in 6 month.  Fortunately, it's starting to get warm and so we don't have to worry so much about pants anymore.  It'll be easier to dress you for awhile.
•  still nap 3x a day, around 10, 1, and 5.   
• "punished" me for bragging about your night sleeping by increasing the frequency of our nightly "dates" from 1 time to 2-3 times per night.  Every night.  For the last month.  Except for the weekend I went out of town.  Then you slept 10 hours straight both nights.  What's up with that??
• still sleep swaddled at night, AND in a sleep sack.  You break your hands out of the swaddle almost immediately, but still want to be wrapped up tight to fall asleep.  I figure when it's time to give it up, you'll let me know.
• are a rolling machine.  Gone are the days when you'll stay on a small blanket.  You're all over the place now.
• are thinking about starting to crawl.  You easily get your knees up under you, but haven't figured out what to do with your arms quite yet.  Which is good.  I'm SO not ready for that.
• put everything and anything you can get your hands on directly into your mouth.  By far, your favorite chew toy is my finger.  I'm trying to get you hooked on a teething ring, but so far, my finger is your snack of choice. 
•  love to sit and stand.  You're not interested on laying around on your back anymore, you want to see the world!
• are still taking prescription strength Zantac twice a day. We had to increase your dosage because you've grown and we noticed an increase in spit up, but...
• we started solids this past week!  You've rejected rice cereal (not that I blame you), but like oatmeal.  And the addition of solids has most definitely decreased the amount of spit-up that follows.  So hopefully, as we increase your solid intake over the next couple months, we can decrease the dosage again.
• have seen a specialist, and been diagnosed with plagiocephaly.  While we were hoping to avoid this, it's something that we've come to terms with, and we've had you fitted for head gear.  You will receive your new "hat" next week, and right now they're estimating 6-9 weeks of treatment.  I wish we weren't headed in to summer and warm weather, but the longer we wait, the longer the treatment is likely to take, so this is for the best.  We hope this is the last of our diagnoses, and specialists, and round of doctor visits and by this fall we will able to take a deep breath and move forward.

It's hard to believe that next month you will be celebrating your "half-birthday".  We've come such a long, long way in the last 5 months, and I feel like the end of the tunnel is in sight and we're finally settling in and enjoying each other.  Also, it's nice not smell like baby puke ALL the time.  People might start talking to me again now ;)