Five Months!

Weight - 20 lbs 11oz (in clothes) (+ 11 lbs l oz from his lowest). 

Height - Not known. Last month was 26 (+ 6 in from lowest; 90 %ile )

Head circumference - Not known. Last month was 17.25 in (+ 2.75 in from birth 85%ile)

Now wearing 12 month clothes! Cannot believe he's no longer in "baby" clothes :(

Likes:

playing with his new piano, making tummy time a bit more exciting

This is such a fun age. Evan has grown by leaps and bounds in his abilities this month, and we are having such a great time watching him learn. He loves his toys, especially ones that makes sounds. One of his new favorites is touching faces. He loves sitting on my stomach and reaching out to stroke my cheeks - sweetest thing in the world. Ed also discovered that Evan loves playing patty cake. He also has suddenly started rotating when he gets ready for bed, until his head is touching one side and his feet touching the other, 90 degrees rotated from where he started. He also has been sleeping on his side. 

Everything is still going in his mouth, even more than before. The world has become such an exciting place, so eating has gotten a bit more challenging, since Evan always wants to stop and look around. He also uses his mouth to show how much he loves us, sometimes in unexpected times. Lately when we try to put him down for bed, he'll start to fuss when we walk away, and then we we come back, his face lights up with a smile. Nothing makes me happier than seeing that smile. 

He continues to be a very observant little boy, listening carefully when people are talking to him (or to his parents). He gets so many compliments on being such a lovely little boy. 

Dislikes:

The biggest dislike by far, that we've discovered this month, is this little gem. 

Evan came down with his first cold (sniff, sniff). No ideas where he got it, and it was thankfully super mild - just a runny/stuffy nose. We saw the doctor, who recommended some better saline spray and using the aspirator when necessary. Evan didn't like the saline spray, but he hated the aspirator. He sounded like someone was torturing him every time we used it, poor little guy. 

He is also too wiggly, now, to sit calmly at the cafe with Ed, so that phase is over. He likes to be able to move around more often than not :). On that note, he seems to have about a 20 minute limit in our Ergo carrier. Hopefully that will grow. 

A last dislike (though it's getting better), is swim lessons. Namely, putting his ears under water. The first two swim lessons, we only got about halfway through before this little boy was wailing about the horrors of getting his ears wet. Luckily, the third class seemed a good turning point for him. He had a few sniffles, but no full blown crying. Hope that this moves to the like column next month!

Important Events:

This was a huge month for Evan, with his diagnosis of plagiocephaly and torticollis, getting his docband, and starting physical therapy. As I wrote about before, it was definitely emotional for us (me more than Ed. His response? Helmets look pretty cool :) ). It's funny, though. A week and a half in, it's our new normal. Evan actually looks odd to us when he doesn't have the helmet on. Our our each evening is the perfect amount of time to soak in baby snuggles and stroke that soft little head. Evan doesn't seem to mind it at all, and is still his wonderful, usual self. He is doing amazing in physical therapy, already making lots of progress. So proud of our little trooper. 

We took Evan on his first hike in Arizona, which was not entirely a success. We made it about 20 minutes before he got super fussy, and so Ed ended up carrying him, out of the carrier, for the rest of the hike. Still, it made us more excited for doing outdoors activities as a family. 

As I mentioned, we also started swim lessons, and Evan went all the way under water for the first time this month. I was definitely nervous, but got to see lots of other babies do it first. Evan was a champ, and went under a good 8 or 9 times at our last lesson. So proud of our little boy. 

We also celebrated him turning 5 months on my 29th birthday - so fun to share our day together! Evan helped me celebrate by being my "date" to the Tucson Art Museum and out to lunch while Ed had to work - couldn't have asked for anything nicer. 

Successes:

Swaddle No More!

Evan is no longer sleeping in a swaddle!!! This was huge for us, and ended up being less painful than I feared. Evan really was ready. We had been sort of half heartedly trying to transition away from it for a few weeks, but as soon as we knew Evan was getting the helmet, I knew the swaddle had to go (the helmet is like wearing a super thick hat, which means it's easy to get overheated). So, we went cold turkey and stopped all swaddling. It took about 4 days for sleep to get back to normal, which is, admittedly pretty sucky right now. Still it makes it so much easier now that we just use the sleep sack. 

Happy to be on a date with my loves

Another huge success was being able to have a romantic birthday dinner with my husband. I had the brilliant plan to have dinner at the hotel we were staying at in Tucson (Ed had a work trip that we tagged along for) around Evan's bedtime. Ed gave Evan a bottle while I headed over to the restaurant and got myself a glass of wine. They joined about 30 minutes later, Evan sufficiently tired. He stayed awake for another 15 minutes, just quietly sitting, and then fell asleep, and stayed that way through our whole 2 1/2 hour meal. It was lovely. 

Challenges:

I'm so cute sleeping here. Too bad I won't do it for long stretches any more!

Sleep. That 4 month sleep regression is definitely a thing. For Evan, I think it's mostly been because he's been so distracted during the day that he hasn't been eating as well, so he's hungrier at night. He used to just wake once a night, but now we're lucky if it's only 3 times (when we go to bed, around 1am and around 4am). We had a particularly bad stretch where it was like having a newborn again - hour of sleep between all the wake ups. It has been getting better, so hopefully we keep heading in the right direction :). 

I've also been struggling a little to fit in all of Evan's physical therapy. We have a good sized list of things that we need to practice every day, so that Evan can keep improving. It's important, but it is a lot of extra work and sometimes it's hard to find the time. We're making it work, but sometimes it is still a little overwhelming. 

Mommy Successes:

Enjoying a weekend away from responsibility

I think just balancing everything. Between doing a workout group 3 mornings a week, swim lessons, physical therapy, helmet adjustments, and all the normal errands and chores, it's been busy. But, we're starting to get a routine down and figuring out how to make things work. 

Daddy Successes:

Daddy and baby selfie at the turn around. Evan was not in the mood for picture taking, evidently. 

Evan went on his first run with his dad! Ed wanted to give me some alone time, so took Evan to Sabino canyon for a 6 mile run. Technically, funs aren't supposed to happen for another month, but Ed promised to take it easy and keep an eye on Evan and all was well. He did great!

Best Moments:

Celebrating my birthday definitely topped the list. It was just about the perfect day from the beginning to end. What I think made me happiest was that, at the end of the day, after getting a lot of "me" time, getting to indulge in some wine while Ed was taking the feedings, I missed my little boy. I went 10 hours without getting to hold him in my arms and I missed being the one to care for him. I'm not sure I've ever been more happy for that 4am feeing, feeling that little boy in my arms with his arms wrapped around me. I am so thankful to be a mom to the sweetest boy imaginable.