Dear Baby - Month #5

Dear baby,

Happy five month birthday! Your father  and I were just talking the other day about how it doesn't seem like you've been around for five months; but then it seems so long ago that I stood at the end of our bed, flicked on the light near the wardrobe and announced to the husband: "it's baby day".

We've had our most eventful month yet. You got your hips scanned the day before you turned four months old, and you've spent most of the month in your pavlic harness. Well, most of the month in most of your pavlic harness - you spent the first two weeks slipping your feet out of the stirrups so that they slid up your leg, but the physio turned the leg pieces around and now you're properly jammed in there. I also had my turn at being the patient and had my hand plastered up - you were very spoilt by your daddy for those two weeks!

It's been weeks since you had your last bath, and you've only really had a few sponge baths too. It's not as much fun for either of us, but you do make it easy by cracking up whenever we undress you. Your father worries that this is something you need to grow out of soon!

We've been powering through with your eating too - we're currently working on peas and (unsurprisingly) you're not really falling for them. I don't blame you because they're squishy and gross and contain the most 'solid' type texture with that icky skin, but we have to keep trying until you 'like' them. You're also getting through 1.5 tablespoons of that sweetened farex - I'm going to need to do some reading as we're rushing towards the six month mark where it starts to become more important for you to eat! It's not long to Christmas and then all of a sudden you'll be six months old.

I'm seeing more and more what a happy, lovely and contented baby you are - quite a few people have commented on how you're smiley and chilled out. It's funny (well, 'funny') to remember how worried I was about you not smiling. How worried I was that I was boring you, or not smiley enough for you, or not enough fun. And now you'll smile so often, so easy.

In the last few weeks, you've really been getting this day sleep thing down pat. And it's helping us both. Not only are you less likely to be feral of an evening, I can count on my little 45 minute windows to get stuff - do the dishes, hang out the washing, tidy the bathroom. And on days when the house is already tidy (like today!) I can sit a little longer and check out my email and facebook without feeling guilty. It helps me to feel that I'm more on top of it all - that I've got a better understanding of being a mum. I'm no longer asking you if you love me, I'm telling you how we've both got it under control.

Baby - you're adorable. You're cuddly, you light up when I come to get you out of bed, and you'll sing and screech and squawk. You cry when it's time to sleep, you laugh when I give you upside-down-kisses, you'll sit and ponder my clothes when I hold you on my lap. You pull faces when you eat, you sit in the sunshine while I hand out the washing, you look at me in the mirror when we pass.

These are the days and the moments I always want to remember.