5 months old!

Another month older, another month cuter, another month funner (it’s my blog, I can use nonsense words). I have lots to update you all on so let’s begin...

As this is an odd numbered month, we do not have a doctor’s appointment to chart little man’s growth. He does seem to be less chubby to me, perhaps he is thinning out with all his activity or perhaps I just do not notice the rolls as much anymore. He is now wearing (and has been for some time) mostly 6-9 month clothing. I looked up his stats from last month and using those, he was bigger last month than half of the 6 month old boys are so he looks pretty grown up to me (he is a little man of course). Also, I am officially calling him a blondie. His hair is getting longer and lighter, so score one for team Ellen (take that daddy dark hair!) He is not sitting unassisted like I thought he would be at 5 months but we do practice everyday and he does fairly well if you are spotting him. He seems to be less interested in sitting and more interested in trying to eat whatever is on the ground. I'm not worried, he'll get there on his own time.

Some cute ones of Donovan hanging out on his blanket and smiling at his dada tonight.



There are several cute things that Donovan has just recently started doing that I want to mention. The first is that he is officially giggling on a pretty daily basis. It is adorable and makes me laugh even harder than he does. He really gets going if I “roar” at him when he is on his back, a trick which daddy has found success with as well. I wish he did it more but he is pretty stingy with his giggles so when he does do them it is so special. The smiles on the other hand, are just the opposite. Those are given often and freely and are beautiful. Another thing that he has recently discovered is (are?) his feet. Yes, technically he had discovered them last month but he only paid them attention every once in a while when he was in his bumbo. Now, he grabs his toes whenever you change him, which is actually nice for those poopy diapers when you need those cheeks in full view/reach with nothing obstructing them for clean up. He usually just plays with his toes, occasionally he tries to put them in his mouth however he is just a little less flexible than he needs to be to really get a mouthful. Those feet get attention when he is on his blanket in the family room too but it is automatic when he is getting changed on the changing table.

Playing with his feets.

More feets.

Close up of my cutie.

He is now also rolling with reckless abandon. He is a pro at rolling both ways- front to back and back to front, and does so many times a day. Donovan also spends the majority of his time now on his tummy as it allows him to see things a little better. Because of the rolling, Dono has outgrown his play mat. It was just too little for him and he would always end up wrapped around one of the arches. We have now upgraded to a large blanket in the middle of the family room which he still rolls off of on a regular basis. We fill it with toys, of which his favorites are his blankets, and specifically his tag blanket. It is adorable, if he is in his bouncer and you hold it in front of him, he holds up his hands and then grabs it and sticks it directly in his mouth. He loves to try to eat everything he can get his hands on, and if it is soft, Bonus! He also loves to do what I call “finger raking”. Basically he opens and closes his hands (palm down) on things that have textures so that his fingernails make noise. He likes to do this on the couch pillows, his sheets, the carpet, his blankets and sometimes on you. Tom jokes that Donovan acts as if he is on “drugs” the way he does it and stares in fascination at the sounds he is making with his nails. I find it adorable.

I never did a post about sleeping like I had planned ( I still want to so maybe it’ll happen) but suffice to say that until last month when we finally made the sleeping change no one in this house was getting good sleep (ie more than 3 hours at a time). Fast forward to this month and happy times!!!! We can count on at least one 6 hour stretch overnight, and generally he gives us more than that. On several occasions he slept 9 or 9 ½ hours straight! This is leaps and bounds away from where we were last month. I actually feel close to human and my memory is returning (slowly). He still usually eats once a night still, but whether that be at 2 am or 5 am you never know. And there are still times when he wakes up and cries when it is not time to eat so we just let him cry himself to sleep in that situation. Bed time for him is usually between 9 and 9:30 which is great for the schedule. We always put him to sleep awake so that he knows that if he wakes up overnight that he can get himself back to sleep without our help. Generally he takes 3 naps a day. The first few weeks you could practically set your watch to them, that he would wake up after 30 min, but lately he has discovered that longer naps aren’t that bad. Now he will have one longer nap a day (generally) anywhere in the 45 min- 2 ½ hour range. I vote for the 1 ½ hour ones so I can sneak a nap in too, but we don’t mess up our schedule  He has also decided that he is a stomach sleeper, which is fine by me, as long as he doesn’t pull any funny business on me.

Sleeping sideways. He started out straight in bed.

A couple pictures of Donovan sleeping with his booty in the air that my parents snapped when they were in town over Labor day.



As far as eating goes, Donovan gets one evening meal of rice cereal. He usually eats it up, although we still wear a fair amount of it by the end of the meal. I was holding off on trying anything else until he turned 5 months old, and what do you know, that was today. So tonight we tried Bananas along with our rice cereal. Donovan...well...the video we have attached speaks for itself.


Some "before meal" pictures from tonight. We started in the high chair and transferred to the bumbo (in the video) after he kept slumping over and sucking on the tray.



Thanks for staying with me and reading this whole post. Trust me, I could go on for days about this boy so for me, this was brief. I love you Donovan, thanks for being the light in my life!