The firsts of five

On Sunday, you turned six months old. But before I go reminiscing about this half-year mark, let me tell you what an amazing month month 5 was. Five has been the months of firsts.

Around the beginning of month 5, you discovered your feet and the fact that you can grab them and bring them to your mouth while lying on your back. This newfound knowledge successfully ended any hope that we had for you rolling over. Now that you have something to do while lying down, you’ve realized that rolling over is highly overrated. Now when we force tummy time on you, you don’t even attempt to roll over anymore—you simply cry with great frustration.

Also at the beginning of month 5, you started learning how to sit up, and by the end of the month, you have perfected this skill. We still put a Boppy around you at times, but you are fully capable of sitting up on you own, and over the last few days, I have seen you even reach for something away from you and then pull yourself back up to sitting. You seem quick keen on sitting up, so you now have very little patience for your bouncy chair—the recline on it is just too boring for you.

Two days after you turned 5 months, you boarded your very first flight to embark on your very first vacation to our favorite city—San Diego. You did a wonderful job on the plane, and you were a real trooper on the trip. You did not care too much for being in the stroller, so we ended up carrying you a lot (thank goodness for Baby Bjorn and Moby). You love to watch people, and being in the stroller must have not given you a good vantage point for people watching. You handled being away from home and the transition to a different time zone as if it was nothing.

When we returned from vacation, you had another first—your first solid food. While many babies (your brother included) have a tough time at first figuring out how to eat solids, you acted as if you’ve been eating from a spoon for years. You knew exactly when to open your mouth, how to get the food off the spoon, how to swallow it and how to open your mouth again in request for more. So far, you’ve had rice, peas, pears and oatmeal with great pleasure (although I am sad to say that you had a mild allergic reaction to oatmeal, so we will have to hold off on that for a little while).

As if to say, “now that I am eating solids, I could probably use a few of these,” two days after you had your first solid meal, you grew a tooth. Two days later, another tooth appeared. They did not seem to bother you much—or perhaps we were blaming your mild crankiness and ear pulling on recovering from travel when it was actually teething pain.

To celebrate these accomplishments, you figured out how to clap your hands, and you exercise this ability quite frequently and very skillfully—to our very enthusiastic “yay’s” and “bravo’s.” You always have a huge smile on your face when you clap your hands.

You continue to be completely captivated by your brother. These days I find it difficult to feed you with Jon in the room because you always want to know what Jon is doing and get really distracted. So I shouldn’t be surprised that it was your brother who elicited your very first belly laugh. You’ve giggled before, but this was a full-out, long laugh in response to a silly song Jon was singing. Of course, hearing your laugh made Jon laugh too, which made you laugh even more, and two of you kept laughing at each other for a long time until I realized that I should grab a camera, and by the time I turned it on, both of you stopped.

You also show great compassion for your brother—when Jon cries, you often cry too—not a frustrated angry cry but a sad, empathetic one.

As the last first of month 5, you attended your very first baseball game two days before your six-month birthday. It was our first family game of the season—and the first one at the Nationals’ new stadium (which is quite fantastic, by the way). You were captivated by all of the people and kept smiling at the ladies sitting above us. The final score was 5-3, although we left at 3-3, with Nationals making a two-run home run at the bottom of the ninth inning to win the game. It would have been great to see, but all things considered, the fact that we lasted though the beginning of the eight inning with a baby and a four-year-old is nothing to sneeze at.

So just like the winning score of five for the Nationals, 5 has been an amazing month for us. I am sure the next month will bring lots of excitement as well, but I think 5 will be tough to beat. Happy 6 months, my love.

Love,
Mom