Baby Blog: Five Months

Weight: 14 pounds, 12 ounces
Length: 25 inches

Dear Babycakes,

Five months old!! This was a very exciting month with lots going on and huge milestones reached.

Your Grammy and Grampy visited for the second time and this visit was more exciting because you could actually interact with them since you were older and more interesting. The two weeks spent with Grammy and Grampy were the first test of you staying with someone other than Mommy, Daddy and Grandma, the three people you had had solo interaction with for five months. Luckily you took to Grammy and Grampy perfectly and had some great quality time with them while Mommy and Daddy worked. You had lots of fun and had a few first with them to witness. First cereal (hated it, acted like we were trying to kill you as we attempted to feed you), first almost crawl (a weird army crawl move that was all arms and then a faceplant), and first huge long belly laugh perpetrated by Grampy in a restaurant which was such a delight for them to experience. Grammy even taught you one of your new tricks, blowing raspberries, which became your new favorite thing and something we desperately tried to break you of later on when spitting food became another form of fun. Thanks Grammy!

While your grandparents were visiting we decided to get you Baptised. While Mommy and Daddy aren't very into structured religion, (I'll explain more on that when you get a bit older. For us, faith is something we take very seriously, it's just the way religions go about it we object to) we were both raised Catholic and believe being Baptised and learning about God and Jesus is important. We had Grammy and Grampy stand in for your godparents, Uncle T and Auntie M since they could not make it to the ceremony. Unfortunately, on the day of your Baptism Daddy got very sick and was unable to attend. He got to see pictures and we went back the next day all dressed up again to take some family photos so we made do with what we had to work with. You were the youngest child getting baptised that day and the best behaved, until a child shrieking scared you and then you were inconsolable. The deacon, who took a liking to you, felt bad and spent some extra time trying to get you calmed down but we ended up having to leave early because you were just not having it. Several of our friend and family came to see your big day and then helped us celebrate at our house with some food and fun. Despite Daddy being incapacitated it was a good day.

You began teething like crazy. Huge drool and chewing on everything. We invested in several different kinds of teethers because our fingers couldn't take much more abuse. You especially loved the ones you could put in the freezer and would suck and bite them for hours if we let you. Weirdly enough you began wanting a pacifier again after months of spitting it out and crying whenever we offered it to you. In all honesty, anything you could put in your mouth went there. But no teeth yet!

We reached the point where you could not be left alone for even a second. Between your ability to roll and scoot and half crawl everywhere, and do it so quickly, you would very rapidly be found in precarious situations. Our family room became an obstacle course of danger zones and after several bumps into the coffee table and tumbles into various hard objects, we did some serious baby proofing. First we got a play yard, or as we like to call it, the baby octagon. Four days in that and you were great, loved the ability to play and roam with no dangers. Day five, you screamed every time we tried to put you in it. So we took everything out of the family room that was hazardous, put the play yard around the entertainment center and put pillows all around the scary spots and made the family room our containment zone. With the gate up in the doorway you pretty much had the run of the room, and you still cried occasionally if we didn't bring you with us when we left the room but for the most part finally were satisfied with having a whole room to terrorize yourself.

Every day it seemed like you learned a new trick. You had become a champion sitter and could sit unassisted with no problem. You also could pull yourself up into a sitting position from your side. Everything that you could reach became fair game and that included hair, boobs, leg hair, chest hair (Daddy is sure to be bald everywhere if you continue on using his follicles as handles), toes, calves, etc. You were super strong too and your grip amazingly firm for one so small. You even kicked a picture from off the wall prompting Mommy to catch it quickly before it beaned you in the head. We nicknamed you Herculean Baby after that. You were still growing like a weed, firmly in 6 month clothes for a while, and starting to test out your legs every chance you got. Finally, this is when you really discovered the cats and became obsessed with them, tyring to get them at every turn and would stop whatever you were doing just to stare at them. And as good as they are, they even would lay patiently while we taught you how to put them nicely and not grab. Little did they know what was to come when you got really mobile and began to pursue them with a vengeance only the young have the energy for.

Kid, Mommy and Daddy and the kitties, we're all old. Slow down!

Love, Mommy