5 months old

I'm a little late again, but last week, Max turned 5 months old!  And an interesting month it was!  Pneumonia, a stomach bug, and another cold kept him pretty under the weather for a few weeks of it. For the most part, he smiled right on through it though...

 

Being sick seemed to reset something in him though and the amazing sleeper he'd been since birth pretty much disappeared.  He has gotten up once a night pretty much since they told us to stop waking him up at night and all of a sudden he was up every couple of hours.  I wish I could say that went away with the sickness, but it didn't.  He's still up anywhere from 1 to 4 times a night, usually 3.  Yes, we've very tired!  It's a really good thing he's so cute!

In the same vein, instead of dropping a bottle like most babies do as they get older, he added one.  Instead of making it 4 hours between bottles, he seems to only make it 3 now. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep nursing as I couldn't keep up with the volume he was drinking, but after drinking more nursing tea than I ever wanted and eating lots of oatmeal and pumping a lot more often, I was able to get my supply to meet his demand!  He's drinking 18 ounces at school during the day and still nursing 3 other times during the day and then however many times at night.  He's one hungry monkey!  We tried cereal in hopes of satiating him a bit, but it didn't really change anything.

He really started talking a lot this month too.  He coos constantly if he's playing or when he wakes in the night.  I'll just hear these sweet little coos over the monitor and sometimes he'll just chat a bit and then go on back to sleep.  He's so very curious about everything and he's definitely in the phase where he puts everything in his mouth.  He is great at holding on to things and getting those very things in his mouth or wherever he wants them to go.  His brain and his hands seem to finally be working together.  Sometimes he can even get his pacifier in his mouth all alone. 

He moved to the crib and did well, but then had to go back to his sleeper because he got so congested that he needed to be upright again.  He pretty much only likes being upright when he's awake too.  He loves being in the exersaucer or just sitting in your lap.  In the bathtub he'll even try to pull himself up from the inclined part of the tub so he's sitting upright.

For all of the changes that month 5 brought, Max really seems very happy.  Everywhere we go, he just smiles and people always ask if he's always that happy.  He really is, unless he's hungry!  He's a complete joy and I just keep telling myself,  when I'm so tired I can barely think straight, that one day pretty soon he won't want anything to do with me and I'd better cherish these moments while I can.  He's getting so big so fast...I wish I could slow it down a little.  But he gets cuter and sweeter every day and we just can't get enough of him.  We love you Super Max!

The Lions take DC

So the snow after Christmas foiled our plans to go see the Lions in Manassas, and then Max got pneumonia, so we had to delay it again, but eventually we got up there a bit later in January. It was so good to see everyone and to introduce Max to his family!  Car rides are not Jack's idea of fun.  He gets very sick if we go more than about 10 miles...I think that's because we live in the city and never really drive much farther than that, but who knows.  It seems to be a pretty common thing for toddlers.  His pediatrician suggested that we give him a small dose of Benadryl (which is closely related to Dramamine) to help and it worked perfectly!  He took a little nap and wasn't sick at all.  Amazing!  

Max got lots of snuggles from everyone and showed off his great smile!

 

 

Jack was pretty excited about more Christmas presents...even the ones for everyone else.

 

 The next morning we got up bright and early and made the trip into DC to go to the Natural History Museum and see the dinosaurs.  Jack calls it the "zeum" and I think it's way too cute to correct.  We'd been talking about it for a long time and day was finally here!  We even got to take the Metro, which might have been more exciting to Jack than the actual museum...

Max took it all in.

Once we got to the museum, they were both really in awe.  We started in the ocean room and Max couldn't get enough of it all.  He just smiled and smiled and looked at everything he could.  Jack was ready to see the dinosaurs, so off we went.  His expression when we got into that room was priceless!  He was so amazed.  Here's a shot just a few seconds too late...

He was all smiles.  It was really neat to see him take it all in.

 

 There are few things I love to see more than Jack listening to his Daddy teach him something new.  Kenny gave Jack just enough info to figure out these were Rhino bones!

After the dinos and animal exhibits we wandered around through some other exhibits too.  The rainforest made a good backdrop for pics...

By the end of the day Jack was over taking pictures.  I tried to get him to pose like a bear but despite my best efforts...he wouldn't and you'll have to settle for me! :)

 

It was a great trip!  I think Jack was at a great age for it but also think he'll love going back in a few years and seeing it all on another level.  We're hopeful to make it to the zoo this Spring and fit in our visit with the Dunhams when everyone is well!

Cereal

Tonight Max had his first taste of cereal.  We had planned to wait until Max was 6 months old before starting any sort of solids, but he has had quite the appetite lately and we felt like he needed a little something that would stay in his tummy a little longer than breastmilk seems to.  He's been up every 3 hours at night to eat for the past few weeks and just this weekend, he grabbed my pancake from my hand and almost got it in his mouth!  

He seemed to know exactly what to do with the cereal...

 

 

Looking back at Jack's first taste of cereal (at 4 months), I think Max was a bit more receptive to it.  We can hope that bodes well for Max to be more interested in food than Jack is. It won't take much for that to be the case though...did you hear him begging to be let down from the table in the video?