Five Months

Leland was five months on Saturday. We had such a nice weekend decorating for Christmas and having family Christmas photos taken. I love lounging in the living room just watching the Christmas tree and am really looking forward to doing this with Leland this year.

Leland seems to be working on a tooth. It’s on his lower right side. Leland spent Thursday and Friday home with Robert and Robert called Thursday afternoon to tell me he could feel a little bump from the tooth and that Leland was being really fussy about the tooth. I can tell it’s really starting to bother him as he constantly has his hand in the spot and keeps rubbing his tongue over the spot too. During his two days with daddy, Leland has been working on mastering rolling over. He did it a few more times for Robert (I still haven’t seen it) and even did it once without encouragement while he was suppose to be napping in his crib.

It’s been such a blessing that Robert takes off two days (almost) every week right now to spend with Leland. Since I returned to work Robert filed for intermittent family leave so that for the first few months Leland won’t have to spend as much time in daycare. This week it was an added blessing. I found out today that last week there was an outbreak in Leland’s classroom of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. Today four of the babies are out sick and two others have sores on them (apparently once there are sores and the fever breaks they are no longer contagious?). It appears the contagious time frame was the end of last week (and over the weekend) and Leland, being home with daddy, was spared. It things like this that make me feel so thankful he is only in daycare a limited number of days, but feel so guilty that he has to go at all.

Leland is growing wonderfully. He is finishing up his last few size 1 diapers right now and is using primarily size 1-2 diapers. He has just recently started wearing some size 3-6 month onesies, but still wears many 3 month onesies and all 3 month or 0-3 month pants. On Thursday, he has his next round of shots, so we’ll get an updated weight then.

Leland’s head control is great. He can sit in the Bumbo or a “sassy seat” for 15-20 minutes unassisted. His grasping is also developing wonderfully. Leland’s favorite toy is the O-Ball. When I offer it to him he will actually reach out and take it from me. His other favorites are still his frog soothie and mobile over his changing table. He also loves spending time on his play mat.

Leland is still eating about the same. He takes 4 oz in the bottle about every 3 hours while at daycare. I nurse him in the morning for about an hour, at lunch for about 40 minutes and in the evening for about 1 ½ hours. Just recently he has stopped sleeping through the night. It started last week with waking up a little early – maybe 30 minutes. Now he is waking up around 4:15 or 4:30 am. When he wakes he is not crying, but rather just stirring. So, I am trying to convince him that he still wants to sleep through the night, but it is only working so well. But more on this later and hopefully you will all have some advice for me.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a really cute video Robert made of our fun this weekend decorating the house for Christmas. He emailed the video to his family who will be joining us at our house on Christmas day.