Five Months of Locke

Well it's been a whole month since I last posted but things have been busy around here. I started back to work part-time and that coupled with various projects around the house have kept me away from blogging. I think I'll say it every month-I cannot believe my child is another month older. I mean, five months? Didn't I just give birth to this kid? Sometimes I miss the days when Locke was nothing more than a lump of baby-fat, but now he's Mr. Personality. He's very social, loves attention, and loves people. He also loves Daddy. His daycare teachers still give me compliments about his easy-going attitude. I've figured out that your kids behave better for other people than for you! He's also very demanding, which I'm sure is common with most babies.
We haven't been to the doctor since his four month appointment (yay!) so I don't know his weight, but if he's on track with where he has been, then he's probably over 16 pounds by now. He's definitely gotten longer because his feet come out the bottoms of his 3-6 month sleepers and we've bought him some 6 month ones. As far as milestones, he can hold his own bottle now. He has started grabbing at anything we are holding, like yesterday he grabbed Erik's Chick-fil-A cup right out of his hand. I'm still holding off on giving him any food, and I'll explain why in another post about Baby-Led Weaning. He is talking so, so much. Of course it is just babbling, but sometimes it sounds like he's trying to have a conversation with himself. He is mouthing everything! He especially loves his set of baby keys, and has recently acquired a taste for board books. It makes reading to him a challenge because he gets upset and wants to eat the book. When I give him a book to chew on it ends up breaking down the board and I'm afraid he'll swallow some so I'm not sure what to do about that. I really enjoy reading to him and I know it's a huge boost to his brain development, but I'm afraid I've created a monster. Locke is still not rolling over yet, and honestly it concerns me. I know every kid is different, but deep down I wonder why it's taking so long to accomplish something most babies have mastered by now. If he's still not doing it by 6 months I'll let the pediatrician know and he can guide us on what to do. I'm not sure if it has to do with Locke's tortecullis or not.
As far as sleeping we have hit either a major breakthrough or fluke, I'm not sure. Last week he took several 1.5 hour naps, sometimes even two in one day. I didn't know what to do with myself, because normally he sleeps for 45 minutes and then we play or try to find something to do with the extra time. Don't think that he's doing this at daycare. Oh no, he keeps to his 30 minute naps there, I guess because there's so much going on. He's still sleeping through the night, although last week he had a couple mornings where he wanted to eat at 4:30 (AM people!) so I got up and fed him. He wakes around 6, but I continue to let him play in his crib until I get up at 6:30. His bedtime is around 6:45, meaning if he's had a bad day with terrible naps I put him to bed at 6:45, and if he's had a good day then it's more like 7.


We've been doing a lot of this: hanging out on the porch in the exersaucer and me trying to squeeze in a few pages of reading. He really does enjoy being outside.

Did I mention how much Locke loves Erik?

He's also in love with the dogs, more so Crockett than Roxy. Mostly just because Roxy couldn't care less about him but Crockett likes to be around me, and thus around Locke. He lights up when they come near him.

Ha! He's also been doing a lot of this, especially in the afternoon/evenings. It might have been mean for me to take this picture instead of attending to his ridiculous demands vital needs, but when he's 18 and thinks he has life figured out I want to be able to look back and see that there were times when he was just plain upset.