Five Months Old

At 5 months, Lincoln:

-Is big. I've given up weighing him at home because it's become clear my scale is off. Let's just say, when I tell people how old he is, they always say, "Wow, he's big!"

-Broke a new sleep record the night before he turned 5 months and slept 9.5 hours!

-Grabs at everything (as evidenced in the picture above)

-Can sit up fairly well on his own (if I put him in the sitting position)

-Can scoot forward as well as side to side and backwards

-Can hold himself up on his hands and knees

-Loves grabbing my face and chewing on my nose

-Sucks all of his fingers, but mostly his thumb (before he mostly chewed on them, now he sucks too)

-Has started kicking his legs against the mattress as he falls asleep. It's adorable

-LOVES the bath even more. He kicks his legs and waves his arms and soaks us thoroughly

-Interacts with other babies he sees. Mostly by trying to grab their faces

-Now eats oatmeal cereal. I'm going to start him on applesauce this week. He loves eating solid food.

-Has figured out how to jump with both feet at the same time in the Johnny Jump Up and exersaucer

-Still hasn't figured out back-to-front rolling over, but is so very very close!

-Has had his first cold. It wasn't bad, but still was no fun.

-Can hold his smaller bottles independently (the big ones too when they're not full, otherwise they're too heavy)

I love how Lincoln trusts me so implicitly. When he was sick, I had to suction his nose out constantly. He's always been pretty good about tolerating it, but I had to do it so much when he was sick it started hurting and he'd cry and fight me. It was obvious he was pretty mad at me. Still, as soon as I stopped and picked him up, he'd cling to me and allow me to calm him down. I hate when he's sad, but love being able to calm him down.

One night while feeding him, I was feeling overwhelmed (once again) with how much I love this little guy. And if I didn't think too much about it, it could feel like I love him more than Kurt. But it's just because I'm used to loving Kurt--I've been doing it for over six years now. Love is like a pair of jeans (follow me on this, I promise it makes sense). When we buy a new pair of jeans, they can be a bit stiff and we're very aware of how they feel on their body. When we first start loving someone, we are very aware of those feelings and they can be extremely overwhelming. With jeans, as we continue to wear them, they start fitting better, we become used to the way they feel on us, and we stop thinking about it. Same with love. We still love the person as much--usually much--but we've become used to loving them, so it's not so overwhelmingly obvious. It becomes a matter of course. We can still have moments where the sensation of loving that person "flares up" and we feel it keenly and it's overwhelming, but for the most part it becomes a piece of our lives and who we are.

Anyhow, that's just me making jeans a metaphor for love. :)