Five Months Old!

Alexander is Five Months Old today! He's growing into such a wonderful little boy. Every day I am thankful for how lucky we are to have him in our lives and anticipate all the new things he'll do & experience.

Developmental
*Rolls front to back and this week has started to roll back to front without any issue
*LOVES (Loves loves) to stand up. He would much rather stand than sit or lie down
*Not sitting up by himself yet, needs to be propped up or in his boppy chair which he's trying to get out of
*He does really well with tummy time and can get his head & neck pretty high up there, he can even look behind himself when on his tummy
*He is incredibly strong - can pull himself up by holding onto someone's fingers and can hold himself up on his legs for a long period of time
*Loves to eat his feet and any plastic item he can get in his mouth
*Can take out & put back in his pacifier
*Babbles, chats, coos, and laughs often
*May be starting to teeth as he likes to chew and bite down on things rather than suck on them
*He can recognize mine & Dan's voice and find us in a room

Physical
*He's starting to feel like a big boy - his thighs are a bit bigger than when he was born
*His eyes are hazel with a small hint of blue
*His hair is brown - most days it's dark where occassionally it's a lighter shade and it doesn't matter of the lighting
*Doesn't have a ton of hair but also has a bald patch of hair missing in the back where he lies down
*He's becoming ticklish

Temperment
*Such a happy baby, alert and always looking to see what's going on
*Hardly ever cries just to cry
*He'll cry when he's hungry, bored or tired, rarely cries if his diaper is dirty
*Loves to laugh and smile - Daddy can really make him belly laugh
*His belly laughs are becoming more frequent

Clothing
*He's wearing pretty much 3-6 months right now
*Also wears 3 months, especially pants & onesies
*Wearing size 2 swaddler diapers
*Still has yet to duplicate an outfit to school
*Laid out the next 12 outfits for school with no duplication

Feeding
*Eats anywhere between 22-30 oz of formula a day
*Takes 6 0z per bottle while at school with a 4 0z bottle for an afternoon snack
*Working on incorporating cereal & solids
*Tried rice cereal but that appears to make him spit up, trying oatmeal cereal tomorrow
*Have had bananas & sweet potatoes and it depends on the day if he'll eat them. Some days he can't get enough while others he fusses and turns his head...obviously he's not 100% ready for those
*Puts his hand over his eyes and rubs his hair while eating

Sleeping
*Bedtime is between 7-7:30pm every night. Some nights he doesn't make it til 7p and some nights he can go to 7:45pm
*He, usually, is good about sleeping through the majority of the night
*His normal morning wake up time varies between 4-5:30am
*Last week he was waking up @ 3am and wouldn't go back to sleep - thankfully that didn't last too long
*The past 5 mornings, he's woken up @ 5am but will chat away in his crib until we get him and then he just smiles at us
*He'll take 2-4 naps at school throughout the day, some as short as 30 minutes and others as long as 2 1/2 hours. It always varies...
*Moves all around in his crib and usually in a crawling motion - if only he knew that he knows how to do that, he'd be so happy because he gets upset on his tummy that he can't crawl

Misc
*Entered in the Great American Photo Contest for the $25,000 Savings Bond - please go search for "Alexander" in MA and vote for his pictures!!! I've submitted 5 different ones. I believe you can vote once a day per picture. I don't know if you have to sign up, but I did find that clicking Vote is annoying because it gives you advertisements and it's hard to find the "no thank you" link but it's up at the top.