Cade Michael - 5 Months

Today Cade is 5 months old! This morning, we all sang happy birthday to him. Since Dylan's birthday is coming up very soon, we've been prepping him on birthdays, parties and how these things work. Later in the day, Dylan mentioned we would sing to him on his birthday too. It's going to be cool to celebrate with him this year now that he "gets it" more. Anyway, back to Cade.

Let's start with sleep since that seems to be how I've started out his other b'day month posts. It's still not happening. When Dylan started sleeping through the night, it happened and kept on happening with very little exception (normally when there was a health issue involved). Not so with Cade. After 3 nights in a row of 6+ hours sleep, he didn't repeat again for over a week. I'm still getting up at least once a night with him. Last night was the best night we've had in a while (by far) and I think he barely hit the 6 hour mark. While I'm getting a lot more sleep than other new mothers (since Mike's home with me), it doesn't mean I'm not ridiculously tired and exhausted a lot. I really am unable to nap. So if we've got something going on in the mornings and I don't get that couple of extra hours of sleep Mike tries to give me, well, I'm pretty much a zombie. 5 months of not sleeping plus about 8 during pregnancy that I really didn't sleep well either. It's taking a toll. I'm trying not to stress about going back to work in a couple of weeks but it's hard not to think about from time to time.

What Cade lacks in sleeping skills, he makes up for in other ways. He is a mild mannered happy baby. A true joy to be around. His smile melts my heart and I could just never tired of his giggles (which his brother makes him do lots). Cade adores his big brother and the feeling is mutual. Dylan loves having him around and they seem to be great friends. Let's hope that mutual admiration and friendship lasts for many years to come.

I seriously just want to eat up these legs!

While there haven't been great developments in the sleep department, there have been great strides elsewhere. Cade has really become interested in toys. It's great in many ways because it shows his little brain is developing well but also frees us up a bit since we're not constantly have to hold him and be the ones to keep him entertained. Dylan loves "teaching" Cade how to play with all of the toys too.

One of Cade's first encounters with this toy. He was truly in awe.
I think his eyes almost popped out of his head.

Cade has also really taken to eating solids. After his start last month, his mouth opening skills have improved by leaps and bounds. Instead of us trying to aim and shove the spoon in while he quickly opened and closed his mouth, he now opens wide for us to shovel it in. We're feeding him solids 2 times a day most days and he's still nursing every 2 to 3 hours. A very large portion of his day is spent eating. He's tried lots of new foods this month too. Of the baby food variety, he's had green beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, peaches and prunes (which truly do move things along as advertised). He's also enjoyed sucking the juice out of apples, oranges and kiwi.

Physically I know he's grown from all that eating but we'll have to find a scale to find out how much. His next wellness appointment isn't until the 6 month mark. Also on the physical front, he's done a lot more rolling from back to stomach, stomach to back and even some barrel rolls across the floor. While he used to hate tummy time, he now spends lot of time very happy on his tummy...especially when his brother joins him there. Over the last couple of days, Mike and I have even witnessed him scooching around while on his belly, pushing with his legs. Does this mean he'll be an early crawler? Time will tell, I suppose. Cade's also been doing lots of ab work which leads me to believe he may also be sitting up solo before we know it.

Cade is such a wonderful little guy. I can't wait to see what changes the next month has in store for him.