Dear Chris: Five Months

Dear Chris,

Oh Chris, how much fun you are! And how we love you.

Since my last letter, at two months, you have grown so chunky! You started your life around the 15th percentile for height and 5th for weight. Now you are 30th for height and 80th for weight! We love to hear that because the doctor says that fat babies are healthy babies. Looking back at your newborn pictures, you had rolls on your legs from loose skin. Now you have rolls because your skin can hardly hold your fat! We love it so much! I can't stop kissing you because you are just too cute. So, you're over 17 pounds and wearing 6-9 month old clothing.

You have started doing some of the cutest things. First off, you love to talk. You have some great conversations, especially with your Grandma Berrett. Of course, you just make little oohs and ahhs and cute little noises, but you love to talk. You have gone through a phase where you don't talk quite so much; instead you spit and blow raspberries. Ha ha it's very fun, but dodging that spit is rather difficult.

Speaking of spit, you drool. A ton. You're not quite to the stage where you soak your own shirts, but you certainly soak our shirts! If we hold you in our arms with your head on our shoulder, we walk away with completely wet shoulders; add in a little spit up or food, and my shirts look just lovely (I'm typing this as I write with a black shirt on and after I had been holding you for a while.... let's just say I will be changing my shirt before I leave the house).

Here is your drool bubble beard. Gross.

Another adorable thing you do is laugh! And you know who you laugh the best for? Your daddy! I was rather jealous at first, but I love that you and he are such good buds. And I would be remiss to neglect the fact that the first person you laughed for was your Grandma.  You started off with these little, kind of chuckles, almost like you couldn't get your laugh out. But now you have nice big belly laughs. You are most ticklish by your collarbone, but also on your thighs. However, you must be in the right mood to laugh, or even smile. In general, you are. But, when we are in a new environment, you are very inquisitive. You love to look around and take everything in. You hate to lay down because you don't get very good views! But you love to look around, especially if someone walks you around a room. If you are in that mood, you rarely smile but stare with these big blue eyes. You rarely cry in a new situation, in fact, I don't think you ever cry in a new situation or with new people. You love new things.

Crying. You have been such a good baby, we don't usually see you cry. When you are tired, hungry, or need a diaper change you cry, just like a baby should. If I try to get your dad to come to where we are by yelling to him in another room, you cry. Ha ha that cry is a sad one, I think because the yelling scares you. Lately, though, we've heard some cries of pain. First, because your fun experience to the ER! (This will be in another post) Secondly, because we think the beginnings of teething are upon us. No fun. We've had several days where nothing consoled you except cold watermelon, sometimes nursing, rubbing on your gums, and sometimes ibuprofin.

Speaking of! We have been giving you solids! Yay! It's been fun. Sometimes I just don't have quite enough milk, and instead of using expensive formula, now we can give you delicious pureed food. You've tried peas, green beans, rice cereal, peaches, applesauce and watermelon. You liked them all, except the peaches. You hated those ha ha. You loved the watermelon. Loved it! We love giving it to you, but you make quite the mess with that. Red face, red drool, red shirt, red bib, red washcloth. But it's been fun and we've enjoyed seeing how excited you get sometimes for food. Next food: carrots!

                 

Your motor skills are developing well. You are maybe a little behind the average, but still just fine. You can hold up your head so well on your tummy and sometimes when you want to get up, you push up on your feet and get your little bum up in the air. You can roll over front to back and back to front. We've never actually seen the back to front.... only back to side, but we have gotten you several times from a nap or in the morning from your crib where you started on your back and ended up on your tummy. You love your toys and you love to grab them. For a while, it took much concentration and much time to reach for your toys and actually have your hand even touch the toy. Now you grab them super fast, pull them to your mouth, and eat them. You also love to grab your foot and it is so cute!

You just love to be with people. You have started hating your car seat and you do your very best to get out of it be arching your back and pushing with your feet. It's rather effective actually and it takes some effort on our part to actually get you in and not feel too bad for being such mean parents.

       

Naps and sleeping are getting into a routine, just this week! You've been sleeping pretty consistently, but you weren't going to bed until 11.... So this week I've been so grateful that you have been going to sleep between 8:30 and 9! Let's hope we keep getting earlier and earlier. When you go to bed at that time, you wake up around 3:30 (though today it was 6:00!) and you wake up usually another time before you're up for good, around 8. You also are taking a pretty consistent nap at 10:30 or 11. I love that! While it's a short nap, it's been great to see you sleeping at the same time.

     

   

       

I feel like there is much more to say, but I will refrain. You are so adorable and so fun, and we are so blessed to have you!

Love,

Mom and Dad

P.S. We have lots of videos of you being adorable, but they will be in another post.