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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

5 MONTHS

Well, I'm not surprised that I'm 2 weeks late making this post....school has started back (3 1/2 weeks ago), and I am still trying to adjust to working all day, doing things around the house, and most importantly spending time with my family. 

Cooper turned 5 months old on August 10th, and it seems like he grows and changed everyday. 

Based on our measurements, Cooper is about 15 1/2 pounds.  He's wearing size 3 diapers and is in mostly 6 month clothes.  I did put him in some 9 month onesies this past week, and they fit him pretty good too. 

I feel like in the past month he's really changed when it comes to what he can do.  He is still only rolling over from his belly to his back.  He won't go from his back to belly.  It seems like he really wants to, and his bottom half will roll over, but his top half won't go all the way over.  I think his big shoulder gets in the way, and he doesn't quite know what to do with that arm that gets stuck underneath him. 

In the past couple of weeks he's also been wanting to not sit still.  He wants to sit up, stand, jump, fall backwards...anything but sit still.  I can't imagine what it'll be like once he's mobile.  Once he figures out how to crawl I don't think he'll ever slow down!

He LOVES when you talk to him, and he tries so hard to talk back.  I think he learns to make a new sound everyday, and it's so funny to watch his face when he realizes he did something new.  He's constantly chewing on his hands and feet, and he still LOVES to be outside. 

I don't know what happened over the past few weeks, but Cooper went from sleeping through the night like a rock since he was 6 weeks old to waking up once or twice during the night about 4 or 5 nights a week.  We've been trying to let him "cry it out" but after 30 minutes one of us will go in there and put his pacifier in.  He's not really awake when he does this, and he goes right back to sleep, so I'm not sure what the problem is.  I think he just misses us and wants to see us at 2 am.  :)  A lot of people have told me it could be that he's teething.  We haven't felt any teeth yet, but he does chew on everything and drool a lot.  He has been doing better the past couple of nights, so hopefully he'll get this sleep thing worked out soon.  Because he's had some sleep issues, we figured it was the perfect time to get him out of the swaddle blanket.  We took him out of that and put him in a sleep sack to keep him warm. 

When it comes to eating, he takes about a 6 1/2 oz. bottle about every 3 1/2 hours.  We kind of cut back on the solids during his whole sleeping issue because we first thought the food might be upsetting his stomach.  He was going a few days at a time with pooping, and we blamed it on the food.  Once we let up on the food, it seemed to ease his stomach issues.  For the past few days, we have been bringing solids back into the picture.  As of now, Cooper's eaten applesauce, pears, sweet potatoes, green beans, prunes, and bananas.  He's liked everything he's tried so far except he hasn't been a big fan of green beans.  He takes a few bites and acts like he likes them, and then he'll just start spitting them out.  It's so fun watching him try new things.

Just in the past few days, he's been trying to pull up on my legs or the couch pillows.  His legs are still a little too weak to do it all on his own, but he has the whole process down, and he knows what to do.  He's also doing great at sitting up.  We can leave him sitting up by himself for about 2 minutes before he starts kicking, and then he topples over.  We usually put the boppy pillow around him, and he loves to sit up and look and grab at everything.

This may be my most scattered post yet....I feel like I've jumped all over the place, but I wanted to hurry about make this post before he turns 6 months old!  Since I've been back in school, time is flying by even faster.  5 months is such a fun age, and I wish I could stop time right now. 

We had a great 5 month photo shoot and got a lot of cute pictures....