Grady - 5.5 Months

Definitely dropped the ball in terms of timeliness on this post - whoops!  I'll keep this one short as I do fully intend on doing a 6 month post in a couple of weeks (seriously, a half a year already???).  And, even though the post is a couple of weeks late, the pictures were taken on time!

This might be my favorite picture of the month because it represents the kids and their personalities pretty well:  Liv - I'll be super sweet to you all the time, Grady, but, Grace, don't count on the same treatment.  Grace - Yes, I do have a mischievous sparkle in my eye, and, yes, I do enjoy hanging around the house in just my panties.  And, Grady - What, I have to deal with these two yahoos all the time???  :)

A few new facts about our little guy:

* He's now sporting 2 teeth - the two bottom ones.  These showed up about 4.5 months after a few weeks of some serious drooling and a decent amount of night time waking.

* Speaking of night time...sigh...Grady likes to get up way too much.  Last night (miracle), Grady slept from 7pm - 3:00am, but usually, he likes to get up at 10, and 1:30, and 4:30 or some variation of that schedule.  The one good part of this schedule is that I'm usually only up with him for 10 minutes or so, so I still feel like I am getting enough sleep.  We've been experimenting with letting Grady fuss a bit more than normal before intervention, but I pretty much can't handle hard crying, so I'm just going to have to have faith that things will improve...and last night helps in that regard, too.

* While night times haven't been ideal, the past month Grady made huge progress with napping.  Rather spontaneously, he started freaking out when I tried to cradle/cuddle him at nap time before putting him down.  After some problem solving, I learned he wanted to be held upright with his paci in and his face against my neck.  Now, after a few minutes of this, he's ready to go down, and he typically (there are definitely exceptions to this) drifts off peacefully on his own.  He usually does an 1-1.5 hour nap in the morning and a 1.5-2.5 nap in the afternoon.  He takes a short evening snooze, too.

* We've been loving spending more time outside.  Grady's a huge fan of this and likes being in his stroller, but even more, he loves the Bjorn where he can be upright and seeing everything.

* Grady can be quite the flirt flashing his smiles; he can also be quite serious/studious and shows this by pulling his eyebrows down/scowling.

* YUMMMM baby food!  I decided Grady was ready for this because I noticed him really watching whenever I drank or ate something (especially if I was holding him).  In the last month and a half Grady's tried out and enjoyed (in this order):  rice cereal, green beans, bananas, peas, and sweet potatoes.  The last is definitely his favorite - he's like a little birdy opening his mouth for more. We've just been doing lunch for now, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I added more meals into the day's schedule!

* Grady is starting to compete with his big sister Olivia in the spit-up department - ugh - yuck.

 

* Grady's babbling quite a bit now, and just today was making a noise that sounded a bit like "da-da" but I might be fooling myself.  He squawks at his sisters and giggles when he's tossed around, ticked, or "roughed-up" in any way.  You can also always tell he's excited by watching his kicking and swinging arms and legs.

* Grady still isn't rolling over which I can't believe, but he does enjoy tummy time pretty well.  He also really likes sitting up (with assistance), and I feel like a few more weeks could have him sitting on his own as I can tell he's getting pretty strong in his trunk.  Grady also likes standing up on my lap and working those leg muscles!