Big boy is 5 months old

My sweetie is 5 months already. I can't believe how the time has flown, especially the last 2 months. I crack up at Matthew and all his smiles and funny antics. It is a little glimpse at the boy he will be before I know it. I can hear his laugh, I can hear his voice coming through his gurgles and coos. He has become a very content and happy baby, and he is full of love. He gets so excited when he sees his daddy come home from work, and my heart melts every time I see them interact together. Alex has become such a good daddy, and it is very apparent to me that being an awesome daddy is a responsibility he takes very seriously. Alex is so creative with his play with Matthew and Matthew just eats him up.

Here is what you are up to this month, my precious boy:

• Improving your strength- steadier on your legs and more control of your truck
• Rolling over both ways, but more from tummy to back still
• Like to jump and dance, you think this is so funny
• Very interested in music and toys that light up and make sounds
• Like to look at books for the first time, even turn the pages
• Are using your hands to grab and hold toys, you jam everything in your mouth
• Have started trying to sit up, you do this very well supported and use your own hands to help hold you up.
• Napping has become a breeze. You fall asleep quickly, enjoy the peace of your crib, and are napping longer than last month. Down to 2 naps per day
• You are an efficient eater, and now have about 5 meals a day- still just breast milk, although you sucked on my apple last week
• You give kisses, the open mouth kind
• You are ticklish on your neck, ribs, toes, and when I blow raspberries on your tummy
• You are back to sleeping through the night- 7:30 to 5:30 for a feed, then back to sleep until 8:30ish
• You have started taking an interest in Maggie, you smile at her and even try to get her attention by banging around
• You stay awake on walks now, look around at things in the neighborhood and entertain yourself with toys
• Are on a very nice schedule, which has led to consistent naps and a happy baby, but are flexible when we leave the house too
• You are well behaved when we go out to run errands or go to eat
• Have a lot of blond hair and everyone says how much you look like your mommy-- I think you have your daddy's sweet heart though.

Here are some pictures of my sweet love from this month

Wait... I thought we gained an hour?

I've heard my friends with kids complain about moving the clocks forward and back for years so I knew there was something to it. When I talked to my neighbor (a mom to be) yesterday morning we mentioned it, but I brushed it off saying I think spring forward is worse cause the babies lose an hour.

Let me take an aside here to mention that within the past week and a half or so we adjusted Matthew's schedule a bit. Since he doesn't need to eat every 3 hours anymore I was able to move his first daytime feed back an hour, which moved his naps back an hour, which by bedtime meant that he took two good naps during the day instead of the short hold-him-over nap at 6:00 because he just couldn't quite stay up until my 7:00-imposed bath and 7:30 bedtime. He has been awesome since then. He sails through the day and it only frustrates me slightly that it took me 5 months to get my poor baby on a schedule that actually works with his rhythms rather than my clock. He goes down for naps in seconds now, naps for hours instead of the 30 min max he was doing before, and is back to sleeping through the night consistently. He feeds well and is likely less bloated since I'm not cramming my boob in his ever-willing mouth every 3 hours. I have built in time for showers, chores, cooking, and even reading this week. It has been heavenly.

Back to the time change... I put Matthew down at 7:30 like always, went out like a light. We had a pretty big Sunday planned- church, with a first-time trip to the baby nursery for Matthew, and then lunch and Bucs game with my best teacher friend and her family in the afternoon. I figured with the extra hour I was gaining in sleep I would read a little bit in my book, The Help, which is just as good as everyone said and I can hardly put it down. I went to bed at nearly 11:00, which is pretty late for me these days. I woke at the new 3:00, with the sudden realization that we wouldn't really get an extra hour of sleep, but that after his 12 hour stretch Matthew would be up an hour earlier- and therefore back to that horrid schedule I just adjusted. The perfect 9:30 church service to end at 10:30 which coincides with his nap would now be a 9:30 nap he would never take a church, and he would likely be messed up when we went to Janice's at 12:30. I figured he would need that third nap again and I had no idea how to fix it.

Right then I heard him wake up to a clock that said 3:00, him thinking it was 4:00. That 4:00 hour is usually my cutoff time to give his first feed of the day, any earlier and he will likely wake up again before his normal between 8-8:30 time. I decided I would try to get him to go back to sleep and I wouldn't feed him until our clock said 5:00, which to him is 6:00 and generally later than he usually goes. I wasn't sure if he would be game for this plan. After about 10 minutes he went back to sleep and I raced down to the computer and googled "babies and time change" only to find a wealth of depressing advice.... "my kids are messed up for a week when we move the clocks... gaining an hour just means up an hour earlier... put them to bed an hour later... no, put them to bed an hour earlier (for clocks back?, yes)... start modifying the schedule a week in advance (whoops).... move the bed time 15 minutes each night for a week... forward or back? yes and yes... go cold turkey." Crap!

I guess cold turkey was the advice I had. I felt somewhat confident that if I could hold him off until 5:00 to eat that he would sleep another 3 hours, not realizing the difference in the hour, just its relation to the two up times. I tossed and turned now realizing that if he were going to be up at his new 7:00 time, I needed to be up even earlier to shower and get ready for church, but instead I stayed up late to read my book, did internet research at 3:00, did make that 5:00 feed, but felt tired despite this coveted extra hour of sleep!

To my surprise I woke up at the new 8:15 (his internal clock's 9:15) and he hadn't made a peep. The stupid squawking sandhill cranes were going at it and woke me up. I now realized church was out of the question as I didn't have time to shower and feed Matthew regardless, and Alex texted me that his relief at work was coming in late meaning he would be late for church. Not a great day to try for church. I went in to check on Matthew and there he was, happy and content, awake and smiling at me while grabbing his feet. BLESS THOSE room darkening shades! He did it, my precious baby didn't even notice the time change, and all I did was fret over a bunch of stuff in the middle of the night that didn't even happen- an inherited curse from my mom.

We are still on schedule for today, like clockwork. I hope this means we took care of that hour in one night instead of gradually. Didn't make it to church but we're off to see the Heidens.

P.S. when driving home from the Heidens at 6:00 Matthew decided to fall asleep thanks to the early darkness. Whoops- 3 naps today. Prayers for tonight.

Beautiful fall day for the park

We have had a really nice few days recently. Matthew has settled into a really nice routine and is going down for naps easily and sleeping well. He is happy when he is up and sticking to this new schedule has helped us get a lot of things done around the house. Alex had today off and it was an absolutely beautiful day outside, a slight cool front and about 65 degrees and sunny and breezy. We didn't want to do too much or go too far from home with Matthew sleeping so well with his naps these days so we went to a park in our neighborhood that never has anyone there. It's on a lake, really beautiful, and has a wide open area to throw the frisbee and Maggie can run around off leash and no one will bother us. Matthew sat in his stroller while we threw, and then we put him on the grass on his mat for some tummy time. Later we went to the swings and Maggie was laughing it up on the slide. It's been a while since she has been to the park and she really loved it. While we took some pictures on the dock, she went in the lake up to her elbows. We all had a nice time and I think we should make it a weekly outing as long as the weather is this nice.

Here are some pictures of our fun day outside.

Halloween

After Alex worked four 24-hour shifts in a row we were really excited for him to come home so we could enjoy our first Halloween with Matthew. We got out of town for a day and a night and went trick-or-treating with our Gainesville family. We don't usually have the time in our work schedules to get up there to see Jen and Jaime's kids for Halloween but since I am still on leave and Alex had the day off it worked out perfectly. Jaime invited about 10 families and their kids over to the house for some dinner and then the kids got dressed and hit the neighborhood.

Since Alex already has the gear we decided he could dress as a firefighter and Matthew would be his Dalmatian. His costume came with ears, paws for the hands and feet, and a cape. I made part of it, buying a white onesie and cutting out felt dots I attached to it as the undershirt. Maggie was a fire dog too- I made her a badge.

We walked with the kids, and I pushed Matthew in his stroller while Alex walked Maggie. I didn't really think through how silly it is to trick-or-treat with a baby that can't walk or grab candy as it's passed out, but there was too much candy on the line and Alex forced me to bite the bullet and get candy for us... so I pushed Matthew up to each door along with Brooklyn, Zac, and Joshua. We had a great time with everyone. It was a bit of a late night for Matthew. He slept in the stroller for about half of the night, and was not in bed until almost 10:00, but was in good spirits and slept decently for much of the next day. He has been a tired boy today.

Look how much faster the kids moved than I did. You can

see me trick-or-treating in the background!

Sleep, baby, sleep

Right when Matthew has a stretch of a few good night's sleep I start to get excited for the nights to come and even better and better sleep... then for some reason or another his sleep regresses. Some time late last week he did his usual nightly routine of bath, dinner, and bed before 8:00. Then like clockwork he woke at 1:00, which is really early. I jiggled his belly and he fell back asleep with a little work and then slept until 6:15- a new record. Then the next night he did the same thing, up at 1:00, then back to sleep until 7:00, another personal best. I wondered if the cool weather was letting him sleep in and if he felt comfy in extra layers and a blanket (yeah, I guess I'm a bad mom for giving him a blanket).

Then on Saturday when Matthew's grandparents came to town he was really full of energy and was awake a lot of the day. He only had one real nap that day and I knew we were in for it that night. He was up again at 1:00, then again at 2:30, only this night he didn't go back to sleep so peacefully. He screamed and woke everyone up, except for Alex who can inexplicably sleep through his howling. I forced Alex to take care of the 2:30 rage, but eventually decided to nurse him to sleep because he had been upset for the better part of 2 hours and was inconsolable, except for mama's works-every-time boobie. He woke up at 6:00 and then 8:00- not a great night.

I was worried about catching him up on sleep the next day and he was exhausted so he slept way too much on Sunday, with a nap about 4 hours long in the late afternoon. Obviously I was worried about how he would sleep especially since he napped so long. He was up again at 1:00 and was not super upset, but was ready to party. He became upset at my attempts to put him back to bed. After trying to get him to sleep for about an hour and a half I threw in the towel, and cried for the first time in desperation as a mommy. I was so exhausted from the previous few nights and was seeing no end in sight for this current "up all night" moment. I woke Alex up, which I rarely do on nights before he goes to work for a 24 hour shift, and told him Matthew wasn't going back to sleep. Alex decided to try to work him out a bit to see if he would tire. About 3:15 I was awakened by lights coming from downstairs. I can laugh at this now that I've caught up on my sleep, but imagine the scene when I went downstairs to see every light in the house on, Matthew bouncing around in his jumperoo, and Alex watching a zombie movie. I said, "What are you doing?", and Alex said Matthew's not tired. I looked down at my jumping baby, who was wide-eyed and laughing it up. I went back to bed and came down 30 minutes later at nearly 4:00, now concerned that Alex would be getting up for work soon. There was Matthew sitting on his daddy's lap watching zombie movies at 4:00 in the morning. I took Matthew with me and fed him and he slept until 8:00 when...

...the street repaving crew woke us up with their jack-hammering and beeping trucks. Now with company and Alex gone I figured Monday would be our day to get back on schedule but the noise outside his bedroom made it nearly impossible to sleep. I darkened the living room, which is farthest from the street and we cuddle-napped on the couch. By the afternoon they were just painting lines on the street, so Matthew got a nap in his crib. We took a nice afternoon walk and he had a good evening, and I prayed like crazy for a good night for us both. I hoped he had forgotten about his all-night party the night before because tonight was all about sleep. I looked a WRECK and think this is the most exhausted I've been since he was three weeks old. We both went to bed early, me by 9:00. He slept, thank the Lord, woke a few times but back to bed within minutes and fed at 5:00 and woke at 8:00. Had a great morning, was a great boy for some errand running while daddy caught up on his sleep after a late night as a paramedic, and he took two nice naps for which he went down very easily.

I tried to get a picture of my happily sleeping baby this afternoon but it was too dark. Just imagine-- it was a precious sight! Rolling the dice for tonight...

A visit from the Grands

Alex's parents came to town this weekend to see Matthew. They were really excited to see our big boy and how much he is changing from month to month. On Saturday we went to Mimi's for brunch and Matthew was an angel. He sat on MamaAdina's lap the whole time and was a happy, talkative charmer. In the afternoon he went for a walk with his grandparents and the dogs and was happy to lay out back in the grass and enjoy our cooler and sunny weather while the dogs chased balls. Sunday was another nice day and he was pretty good when we went to a Peruvian restaurant for lunch before Grandpa Neno and MamaAdina headed home. With all the excitement of people in town Matthew was off his schedule and slept terribly for a few nights. He sure enjoys his grandparents when he is awake though.

Here he is enjoying the Halloween books his grandparents brought for him.

New trick

Matthew sat up a few times by stabilizing himself with his hands on the ground. This was the only time the camera was close enough to where we were to get a picture. He's got the balance down, now we're just working on the posture. It is so cute to see him concentrating so hard when he is trying a new physical tasks.

This is the only picture I have so far... more to come hopefully, one with his sweet cheeks and adorable grin.