Month Five: Holy Cow
Beanie is five months old now. I can’t believe it. I mean, on one hand it feels like he’s been here my entire life. Some people say that you don’t even remember your life before you have kids, but that’s not really what I have experienced. I remember everything before I had Beanie, but somehow even those memories that don’t include him seem brighter now that he is here now.
Does that even make sense? Probably not.
Its like if you’ve never had HD before and suddenly you get an HD TV. You still remember all those old shows you used to watch, but now when you see the reruns, the picture is just so much clearer.
Does that make even less sense? Probably.
But on the other hand, time seems to be flying by. I sometimes flip back through pictures from when we were in the hospital with Beanie and I feel like it was yesterday. He looks like a completely different person today than he did then, but I can remember him – what he looked like, what he smelled like, what he sounded like – as if it just happened a few minutes ago.
Isn’t time funny?
Beanie at five months old has been the best Beanie so far, I think. He’s so happy. And he’s vocal. He can’t speak words, but he can certainly tell you what he wants and thinks. Sometimes his talking and babbling sounds like he’s crying or mad. I used to go running to him every time he made noise because he sounded so upset. But I’ve learned that that is just his way of trying out his voice. He tries all ranges of sound and noise and its so fun to hear him learning how to control that.
Right now, Beanie’s favorite toys are his feet. We can’t keep them out of his mouth. He sucks on his feet like most babies suck on their hands. He hates riding in the car and I am 99.9% convinced its because he can’t lift his feet to his mouth. Its the funniest, strangest, weirdest thing I’ve ever seen!
Other than his feet, he is really into toys with more detail now. He wants things that he can spin and push and poke. He is fine-tuning his eye/hand coordination and you can see him practicing on toys that have smaller little things for him to focus on. He has a toy elephant whose body is made up of all different knobs that twist and spin and he loves that. He’ll sit with it for a while, just trying to make all the knobs spin.
He also has a teddy bear that he is really attached to right now. He likes to sleep with things in his face – which gives me several minor heart attacks a day. He pulls his blankets or his shirt or whatever he can find up over his face. I really have to be careful what is around him now when he goes to sleep because if it can be moved, he’s going to pull it to his face. This teddy bear has been his favorite so far. He curls up with his face right next to the bear and he falls asleep like that. Once he’s sleeping, I take the bear out of wherever he is so that he doesn’t sleep with something in his face. I never put the bear into his crib with him, but its pretty darn cute to have him sitting on your lap, curled up with a teddy bear.
You know, if you think the risk of suffocation is cute…
So far, Beanie has been fairly on target with his milestones. He isn’t really early with anything, but he isn’t really behind either. He rolled over right at the beginning of the fourth month. He had one good weekend where he was rolling around like crazy (only front to back though). And then he never rolled again. I was so worried. I kept checking all my baby books and comparing him with all my friends’ babies. Everyone else was rolling like crazy.
And there sat Beanie.
Sucking on his feet, with absolutely no desire to roll over ever again.
Finally, he started rolling over again this week. He’s rolling front to back and back to front. But only when something really motivates him. So far, he rolls over if he is craning his neck to see the dogs. Whatever. As long as he can do it.
And he’s so stinking close to sitting up on his own. He looks like a Weeble Wobble right now. He sits there holding your hands and he just lolls back and forth from side to side. But every now and then you’ll see him find his center of gravity and he’ll sit real still and straight for a few seconds. And then he gets bored and he flings himself backwards so that we hold him upside down.
The kid loves to be upside down. He’s a strange duck.
We’ve tried rice cereal for a couple weeks now and Beanie is just not into it at all. He cries. He screams. He freaks his freaky little self out. So, Chris and I are taking this as a sign that he’s just not ready yet for solid foods. We’re going to put it on hold for a while and try again when he’s six months old. I’ll feel better trying other foods when he’s six months old so maybe that will help, too. I don’t want to start on anything other than rice cereal right now because I’ve read about risks that starting solid foods too soon can lead to more food allergies. So, we’re just going to sit on it for a while and we’ll try again in a couple weeks. Maybe then we’ll mix it up with bananas or pears or we might even go wild with SWEET POTATOES!
Live it up, Beanie!
So, that’s what Beanie is up to right now. He’s just about the happiest little guy I’ve ever seen. He makes my heart sing and I’m so darn proud of him – and of me and Chris! – that I just about bust. Sometimes at night after he’s gone to bed, I look at pictures of him because I miss him already. Isn’t that awful?
LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME, BEANIE!
(Isn’t it the greatest thing ever???)
18 Comments
Ashley
Congrats for a WONDERFUL 5 months!! I love that little guys chin! It has to be the cutest little chin I have ever seen!! LOVE the pictures!
Sandy
Talking about sleeping with things next to his face reminded me of my sister singing The Suffocation Song to her kids when they were little…I was horrified! You want Beanie to eat solids €¦try some of those vinegar cucumbers (have the camera ready though 😉
deepa
We do the pictures after bed thing too! I feel so pathetic, but I can’t help it. 🙂
Laura
Yay! Cameron just turned five months old this past Sunday. These boys are getting BIG! 🙂
katie
LOVE these pictures of Bean with the hat! he is so darn cute! my daughter is a month behind bean and I’m also a working mom! I found you through Whitney @glamhousewive a little while back and started following ya. I love your writing and I really relate to you and your posts!
Tressa
He’s such a doll! Good job mom and dad on the first 5 months!!! Is that a couple of bottom teeth I see in the first picture?
Katie
Yep! Two teefers!
Nate's Mom
If I want a sure fire way for Nate to fall asleep while nursing, I cover his head with something soft. A blankie or his wubbie will do the trick. It must be a phase. He loves to suck his thumb and have something soft against his face. Yes. It freaks me out too when I find him asleep and his face is covered by something but everything he’s with is pretty breathable so I’m trying to relax a bit with it! Love that cutie pie Beanie and how he’s growing!!! 🙂
Jennifer
I love your blog!! The lilttle Bean is too cute! I have an 8 month old boy and he loves having something against his forehead when he goes to sleep. I got him one of those seahorses with the glowing belly that plays music. I think he likes the glow and its not too plush so I dont really worry about him suffocating. and you’re right time does fly…I have no clue as to what happened to his 6th and 7th months.
Hope your husbands dad gets better!!
Amanda
What a cutie!!!! Congratulations on making it this far without having a nervous breakdown! It gets easier from here, because they get so interactive.
One person told me not to rush the solid food…keep ’em babies as long as you can! So I laid off around the same time you are now. He loved the taste of bananas, but hadn’t lost that tongue thrust thing yet. Just be patient. He’ll get into it when he’s ready. 🙂
Lori @I Can Grow people
We started rice cereal at four months and found that it just sort of made Porter upset. He wanted to eat it so badly, he just couldn’t figure out how to make that happen with his mouth, lips and tongue. So we waited a month or so and things got a lot better–now he wants to eat everything!
Isn’t it amazing how babies can grow and change so much in such a few short months?!
Ella
Cute photos of beanie. I waited until 6 months with my son and loved the rice cereal straight away. He moved on to having a bit of apple next and then vegies. He has turned into a fuss pot now – he is two but im sure he will outgrow it. Congrats on getting through the first 5 months- its does get easier – until they turn 2!
Nate's Mom
Oh – and holla for the Bean’s first teeth! Nate’s been teething for what seems like forever and has nothing but drool to show for it!
Jayme
Have you heard about or seen Sleep Sacks? Target sells them! you should check it out ( another reason for Target 🙂 and its for Beanies safety,So Chris can’t complain 😉
Looking € oHeaven
Hi Katie,
I don’t know if this will make you feel any better but I wanted to share with you that my son never ate baby food of any kind. He was gaining weight so his doctor said not to worry. He started eating table food right about at a year. He’s 9 now and has no residual effects 😉
Christina
Great day, he’s so cute I can’t stand it!
And, by the way, time is NOT funny, it’s mean! Just wait until he’s TWO YEARS OLD and you think to yourself,”I was just in the hospital yesterday, right? Wearing the mesh undies? Right?!” Not funny at all.
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