My baby is 5 months old. How did that even happen? HOW, I ASK YOU!?
I guess I'm just blown away at how time is flying by, seemingly faster than the speed of light.
Luckily, I've been able to find even just the tiniest amount of time to sit down, relatively undisturbed, (JK... this is going to take forever) in order to recap Mr. Baby Jack's 4th month, and what we're looking forward to for his 5th.
This past month has been BUSY. I'm talking, super ultra monster cray-cray busy. We've been all over the place. One of the major highlights was going to D.C., where we were true tourists in the city I used to call home.
We had so much fun walking around, visiting the Hirshhorn Sculpture garden, and seeing all of the beautiful art. We toured the monuments, where Major fell in love with giant Lincoln, and is now convinced that that's how big he was in real life. His response? "At least the White House is big!"
We took in the WWII Memorial, as well as the Vietnam Memorial, and then capped our day off with delicious ice cream from a truck, and the National Air and Space Museum.
Baby Jack slept for about 1/2 of our excursion, but while he WAS awake, he was alert, looking around and taking everything in.
It's so cool to watch him and see how he's becoming more and more aware of his world, and all of the neat things in it.
We also visited the National Aquarium as a family, however, that was a monster fail. They have a no-stroller policy, and so they tried to provide us with a "front snuggler," basically a wearable carrier, but not comfortable at all. Jack basically just hung there, with his legs all pinched and his little body all squished. He screamed and screamed, so we decided the carrier was a no-go. I decided to try to carry him around, but he screamed, spit up everywhere and nearly dropped his pacifier into the shark tank... Horrible. I bid the boys adieu, and took Jack back down to the stroller check, grabbed the stroller, and sat in the cafeteria until Major and Michael had done a quick walkthrough of the first areas available. I felt badly about it and told them to just go finish, but I was secretly relieved that I didn't have to sit in the cafeteria any longer.
But we learned a valuable lesson. We needed a comfortable, safe and secure baby carrier for our little buddy for situations such as these in the future. We researched and found that the ErgoBaby, the original baby carrier, was just what we needed. Thanks to Amazon Prime, we received our awesome little carrier a few days later, and Major, Jack and I headed back out to the aquarium.
SUCCESS! We saw everything.
We saw the sharks, the rays, we pet some jelly fish (!!!), watched a dolphin show, toured a rain forrest, saw monkeys and heard crazy birds (couldn't find them) and basically did the aquarium right.
It was so much fun, and Mr. Baby LOVED his Ergo. He was comfortable, and he looked around and watched everything. His favorite was the rainforest where he could see the beautiful trees and parrots flying around. I tried to point out the monkeys, but I'm pretty sure he had no clue what he was looking at. Worth a shot, right?
When we're not touring our nation's capitol or visiting the aquarium, Major, Jack and I have been visiting Riverside Park for its pool and playground nearly every single day.
At only a 10 minute walk from our house, it's a no-brainer. Major gets to swim and play and meet friends and get his energy out while Jack and I try to keep up. We've been soaking up the perfect summer here in Charm City.
Jack has grown so much over the past month. He was 14 and a half pounds last month, and using my super scientific approach to weighing a baby (weigh myself alone, then weigh myself with him, do some math, you know) he's gained 3 lbs and weighs a whopping 17 lbs! He's so cute. I can't get enough of him.
He's been smiling a LOT, and guess what? LAUGHING. He's LAUGHING.
He's also trying his darnedest to sit up alone, and he's almost there.
He also decided tummy time isn't the worst thing ever. In fact, every time I put him on his back, he flips over to his side, then to his tummy. He's trying to crawl, which astounds me. He ends up just wiggling his way around but it's SO close!!!
He sleeps on his belly now too, which at first freaked me OUT. I mean... SIDS!!!! Right? But, as it turns out, I needed to just pipe down, and realize that if he's strong enough to flip over himself, he's fine to sleep like that. And he is. He sleeps wonderfully. 90% of the time, he sleeps through the night. Other times, he wakes up around 2 for a quick bottle or snuggle and he's right back to bed.
He still loves sleeping in his crib, and even more, I love the Infant Optics DXR-8 Video Baby Monitor we have for his room. No, I'm not sponsored. I don't even know the company.
I don't have affiliate links. I just REALLY like it. I can watch him, hear him, move the camera around to see the rest of the room, and best of all? I can TALK with him. It has color day vision and night-vision. It's just perfect and I love it and I love watching him in it. Makes this mommy's mind rest a bit easier at night when I can just look over and see him there, instead of going down the steps to peer in and potentially wake him. Anyway, I love it.
He's on a steady eating, napping and playing schedule right now, which is awesome, however I know that things are going to change whenever Major goes back to school in 2 weeks. But we'll handle it as we've handled every other change, and that's been a lot easier and a lot more graceful than I'd anticipated. I'm also pleased to say that he's starting to enjoy some apple sauce, and I think we'll be slowly introducing some sweet potatoes and other yummies into his day.
All in all, our little man is growing beautifully, with strength and wonder.
As for what I'm looking forward to in this 5th month of life... I am looking forward to him being able to sit on his own, explore new tastes, and of course, to watch him crawl for the first time. I look forward to hearing more laughter, and to see what his little face looks like with teeth! Soon enough, I'm sure... Thank you for coming on this journey with me!
