Lil NoNo turns 5 months!

We don't have a camera anymore, just Mike's phone. Unfortunately Mike travels a lot so I had to recycle a picture. We've actually been snarking Grandmom's pictures. So here we are. 5 Months.

Hello everybody!



I know. I know. We posted this one already, but this is the exact day that Noah turned 5 months old. And this shot is so funny and sums him up so perfectly, I just had to post it again. Sorry NoNo, but it's your fault for being SO CUTE!

So let me give a little update on our baby. For awhile Noah was fussy. Really fussy. Part of the reason could've been the heat and the fact we dragged him to the beach all the time in the middle of it. He also had a bit of reflux too. But now he's mellowed out into a happy little baby. But that could change since babies have on and off months. I know there's a pattern to it, but for now Noah's very happy, smiley and giggly during the day.

As for nighttime... O dear God. Noah goes about every other night now. We have a little routine where Noah, like Evan, goes to bed 7:30-8pm. Ev gets 2 stories, a drink, a prayer, lights out, 2 minutes of Mike or I laying with him then we leave and blow kisses and he falls asleep. While one of us is with Evan, the other is with Noah. He's given a bottle or nursed, I sing him a song, say a little bedtime prayer and lay him down and he's out. Then 11:30 rolls by and he's up. Sometimes to 3am. I find myself watching Mel B.'s reality show at 2:30am with Noah in my arms watching it with me. He'll fall asleep for an hour, then up again at 4am. It's awful. Then the next night he only gets up once, nurses and drifts back to sleep immediately. It's been every other night like that and it has taken its toll on my mood and my sanity.

Then I noticed something today. Mike's in Boston and I'm hanging out with the boys in the playroom tonight after dinner. Noah had been drooling like crazy. Shirt soaking drool. He was fussy about an hour before bedtime and he was chewing on his pacifier like his life depended on it. I put my finger in his mouth and ran it along his gums. I felt a hard little lump to the right and rubbed it again to make sure. Noah let out a high pitch scream. A tooth is trying to push through!

So I gave him some tylenol tonight, so please everyone keep your fingers crossed for me. Sleep my little one. Sleeeeeep.

Also, I very unofficially started solids, but I'm stopping again because my mother gave me a a guilt trip. So the plan was to start at 6 mos, do the rice cereal thing for a week, oatmeal, a few days, introduce a fruit or veggie every 3 days, blah, blah, blah... But then Noah pushed me.

He STARES at me intently when I eat all the time and tries to grab my food, so sometimes I let him suck on my chunk of watermelon or apple slice or whatever. A week ago I was eating a delicious, ripe peach... so good it almost tasted like a mango. Noah was staring at me, trying to grab the peach with his mouth wide open yelling "Ah! Ah! AHHH!" So I let him suck on it. It was so ripe that some teeny pieces came off and dribble down his chin. I panicked and took the peach away. Noah gave me a desperate look, "AHHHH!" I translated it into "But WHY?" I was at my parents' house so I called my mom at work, "Where's the baby food grinder?" My mom was quiet at first then said "You should start with rice cereal". I finally got directions from her and I got it out of my sister's closet, cleaned it and ground up some peach with breast milk. I fed Noah out on the porch on my lap and he went nuts. The first 5 bites ended up on his bib, but he slurped it up after that. When I told mom about it lately she shook her head at me,"You should've started with rice cereal."

Throwing caution to the wind, he had banana the same way the next day, then apple the day after that. Now I'm reading my baby food cook book and it confirmed my mom's advice that I should hold off "At 6 months, your baby's digestive system is still new. The first foods you offer should be the most mild and digestible ones... earlier introduction of food has been linked to allergies, diabetes and obesity." I knew this stuff from when Evan was an infant, but I got so excited when Noah showed so much interest. Evan was never that interested in food, still isn't really. So now I'm waiting a bit and going for the rice cereal first. My dear mother will be happy. We'll see how our Noah feels about it. At least I have a little more time of innocent, stinkless breast milk poops where it's hard to tell if he pooped or not. Once Noah starts eating solids - watch out! They'll stink.