5 Months

I LOVE the age Caleb is at right now. I think each "stage" gets progressively more fun so far. Hopefully that will stay true. Caleb is so curious right now. He gets so excited with each new object I give him for him to explore i.e. put in his mouth. He can play more independently now too. Yeah!!! I have to admit that I was really struggling during the day with activities to do with him while he was awake. It seemed that he had to have my full undivided attention, and that was getting really hard. How many different things can you do with a baby all day long? I was running out of ideas fast...we would go on a couple of walks each day, play with toy after toy after toy (his attention span was very short), read a few stories, practice rolling over, etc. My days just seemed pretty boring. We still do all that stuff each day, but it helps so much that he plays more independently so I can work on some things that I want to do. Besides exercising and reading my scriptures, I like to try to fit in a little scrapbooking each day, piano playing, and I finally have learned how to crochet (I'm working on a burpy for my sister). My days feel a lot more productive when I can do some of the things I want to do. Here are a few pictures since my last post.

He's so peaceful when he's sleeping. If only he would do more of it at night! He is still waking up 2 to 3 times every night and can't comfort himself back to sleep. Usually it just takes someone holding his hand, and he'll fall back to sleep within 10 minutes, but sometimes it takes much longer! My mom says I value my sleep too much, so Caleb is just trying to remind me that I used to go on less sleep in high school (but that wasn't interrupted sleep!). He is eating oatmeal cereal very well (rice cereal...not so much), but even that hasn't helped his sleeping at night. I used to do all the getting up by myself at night since Matt had to go to work the next day, and I could try to squeeze in a nap. But it takes me SO long to get back to sleep after I wake up with Caleb at night whereas Matt hits the bed and he is OUT. It is very unfair, so now Matt helps during the night more :). We have made progress as far as Caleb being able to fall asleep by himself for naps now rather than us rocking him to sleep. That's helped a lot!

Caleb standing up by himself in his crib. He's still very wobbly.

Chillin' with Dad