5 Months!

Brendan turned 5 months today!  Where oh where has the time gone?  It feels like just yesterday he was wiggling around in my tummy and Ian was waiting expectantly for his little brother to be born.  Now, how would I describe Brendan... He's a very happy baby and quite ticklish!  He giggles and laughs with little provocation and is a very content little guy.  He continues to be a little hesitant around strangers and gets the most pitiful expression on his face when he decides he would prefer to be in his Mommy's arms.  Initially he wasn't too sure about going with Ian to Tiffany's but now he greats her with huge smiles and giggles.  Perhaps the biggest development during the past month has been his growing interest in Ian.  He watches his big brother constantly, you can tell he wants to join in to the fun.

As you have seen from previous posts, he is sitting for a nano-second or two before toppling over and just recently (in the past 3 days) mastered rolling from front to back which means he's much, much more mobile... with the full 360 degree roll he can get all over the place!  He was really cute when he first made it from front to back, he got this huge smile on his face and looked very, very proud of himself!

We have started feeding him as well.  He had bananas last night and really, really liked them (ate nearly a whole stage 2 jar!)  I feel a little guilty, I made all of Ian's baby foods and haven't started doing that for Brendan yet.  I tried to puree some peas but I couldn't get them smooth enough and he refused more than two bites.  Perhaps that's why Ian never really took to eating foods until he was 7 months... I never got the purees smooth enough for him.  Oh well!

And, as for sleep... we are doing much, much better.  Although he still needs to have a binky replaced a few times a night he, for the most part, is no longer nursing.  This was more my decision than his.  I was starting to feel half crazy due to nearly 5 months of not sleeping for more than 3-4 hours at a time.  The nice part about binky-replacement instead of nursing is that Stephen can do it too.  So last weekend I got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep 2x in a row!  I can't begin to explain how good that felt.