Pumpkins

We went to NY this past weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday and not only did we get to spend time with family and friends, we also went to the pumpkin patch AND spent time with friends and their babies. Hello, photo ops!


Uncle Billy made Chase a great knit cap, which looked great with his Halloween onesie.

Afterwards, we ventured out to the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, the timing didn't go well.

Chase was asleep almost as soon as we got there. We still walked around...

 We looked at the pig in the petting zoo...

And got about as close as I was willing to get.

So, we gave up and went home. Chase clearly needed to sleep (he was getting sick anyway). But we went back the next day.

 Chase was busy exploring (and maybe a little sick and a little overwhelmed) so we hardly got a smile out of him all day. Still, there were some great pictures of a great outing!

Chase at 5 months

The last month has flown by in a flurry of low-sleep nights, work weeks, and visitors/travels. Chase is now 5 months old.

Unfortunately, the little guy is sick. The cold the doctor said was coming hit in full force. He's got a pretty deep (but loose) cough and the congestion in his chest is so bad that you can hear it as he breathes. He's been sleeping more than usual and is frustrated by his inability to breathe well while sucking on the bottle/boob or his binky. As a mom, the frustration of not being able to help my sick child is overwhelming. It's especially hard because all we can do to treat a cold is put the cool mist humidifier in his room and use the boogie bulb to clear his passageways...which makes him scream. :-( And since I don't have the cold, he doesn't have the added boost of antibodies against it from my breastmilk. Hopefully he'll get better soon!

In spite of his sickness, Chase is still pretty happy!

At 5 months, Chase is:

-Eating solid foods! Rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, avocado, and banana so far. He loves oatmeal and avocado. Bananas, not so much. Meal time is great- it gives us an opportunity to sit down together and play talk and smile.

-Holding his head upright without support. He holds it up while we carry him (rather than his dangerous "lean back" move) and uses his exersaucer with no problem at all. His head still bobs once in a while, but he's getting stronger every day.

-Hanging on to us when we carry him. This makes carrying him a lot easier.

-Pulling/hanging on to hair and necklaces. Sweet.

-Almost sitting without support. He'll be there soon.

-Rolling from side-to-side when he's on his back, but not really rolling over. He's done it, but he doesn't show any interest in rolling over (either way) anymore. When he's on his tummy he does move his arms and legs like he's swimming and puts his face down in frustration that he's not moving.

-Sleeping better. FINALLY! He's been more consistenly only waking twice a night. And this past weekend his first wakings were at 3 and 4am! And he's been going back to sleep for 3 hours. Of course, last night he woke up 11:30 and 2am, but then he didn't make a peep until 5:45. I'll take that. Let's hope this keeps up.

-Still teething. And he still hasn't even gotten his first tooth!

-Showing preference for Stephen and I. Not only does he smile when we walk in the room, he prefers one of us to hold him over anyone else. He's still happy with other people, but once he gets hungry/tired, it's back into mom or dad's arms. I know being too attached to us isn't good, but I have to say, I love that he wants me.

-Learning his name. He's starting to turn towards me when I call his name. So I have to work on calling him by his name and not any of the many pet names I use (Goo, BooBoo, Little Man, etc).

-Learning other names. When we ask where Mueller is or what Mueller's doing, Chase scans the ground. He's learning that Mueller is the dog (or at least the brown thing that licks his face) and that he's usually close to the ground.

-Getting ready for winter...

Update

Our apologies for not posting for a while. We were sleep-deprieved (more on that below) and the grind of daily life doesn't leave many opportunities for pictures (aside from the situations like those below).

Overall, Chase is doing great. He's generally pretty happy, eating more solid food, and getting stronger. He laughs and LOVES it when we sing to him. His favorite songs are Snuggle Puppy and Winnie the Pooh.

He had his first "sick" visit to the doctor last week. He felt warm to us, but according to the ear thermometer his temperature was only 98 degrees. We sent him over to the nanny share and warned Kayla about him feeling warm and a few hours later she texted me that he was coughing and felt warm. So I called the doctor's office and they said to bring him right in. An hour later, we're in the exam room and he's having the time of his life moving his arms and legs and making the paper on the exam table make noise. His temperature was 97.5. Chase was laughing and smiling when the doctor walked in and said "well, he certainly doesn't look sick." As you probably guessed, everything was fine. Dr. Wirt thought maybe Chase was getting a cold, but his ears and chest were clear. Harley Mae, his nanny share friend, was just getting a cold so I took him home and we napped and stayed germ free.

Sleep isn't going too well.  The past two week's his wakings have has been all over the place. Sometimes he wakes up 5 times, other times just once or twice. Sometimes he wakes up at 10:30pm and every 2 hours after that, other times he doesn't wake up until 3 and then doesn't really go back to sleep. We've tried just about everything we could think of, short of sleep training which we don't feel that he (or we) is ready for. So I go to bed as early as possible and Stephen gets up with Chase sometimes and we're surviving. Hopefully it'll get better soon!

As I said, there isn't much time to get pictures of Chase during a regular day and our weekends are spent catching up on sleep, running errands, and seeing friends. Most of his pictures are during dinner time or while he's in the exersaucer. But I'm committed to getting more pictures of him, especially now that it's fall and there are pumpkins and leaves and so many great photo ops! In the meantime, enjoy...

(Blogger added a new feature that makes it easy to add lots of pictures at once. I LOVE IT!)