Dear Bo, You're five months old today!

5 months old!
Here's what you're up to:

• You love to play with your hands. It is so cute. Your chubby hands are one of my (many) favorite things about you!
• I think you're cutting a tooth so you are always drooling and chewing on said hands.

• When you're in your bouncy or your swing, you keep your arms straight and kick your legs like a mad man. You look like a river dancer!
• You smile and laugh so easily. You especially like to laugh and squeal at Daddy.
• You coo a lot of the time...especially in the mornings. You usually wake up happy and talking.
• We call you Pooka (Meka started it), and it makes you laugh!
• We had our first non-family dinner guests since you were born. You were a good boy. You met Baby Claire for the first time.

• You wear 3-6 months clothes and size 2 diapers.
• You have gone back to spastic nursing, especially the last feeding of the day. I quit fighting you and just give you a bottle for that last feeding now.
• You love your baths, but you HATE when we put your pajamas on after bath time. You throw a fit and really do need a good swat on the leg for it.
• You take 6 ounces in your bottle and are on a 3-3.5 hour schedule.
• Your typical day generally looks like this: wake at 7:30am, eat at 8:00, nap at 9:30 (for 2 hours), eat at 11 or 11:30, nap at 12:30pm (for 2 hours), eat at 2:30, nap at 4 (for 1 hour), eat at 5:30 or 6pm, play/take a walk.
• Our night time routine with you is generally: 7:30 watch Praise Baby DVD to wind down, 8 bath, 8:15 or 8:30 eat/burp, swaddle, pray, sing Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children, then rock to sleep.
• You still are a challenge to put to sleep. You won't settle without being swaddled, but you fight it before you'll go to sleep. You normally are out within 5 minutes of the start of the struggle though.

• Your nights have improved drastically. You are usually up once to eat and maybe one other time if you break your swaddle. One weekend this month you were up every 1.5-2 hours! I don't know what was up, but something was. Fortunately, it didn't last longer than 2 nights. Overall, the nights are just so much better.
  
• You are going to the bathroom by yourself now! No medicine to help you! This is such an answer to prayer!
  
• You love TV. We put on a Praise Baby DVD every night for you to wind down to, and you will watch the whole thing (it's a half hour long). Mimi and Pop got you a farm animal DVD that you kick and squeal about, too. When I get ready for work in the mornings, I put you in your bouncer on our bed and turn on Baby Mozart or a cartoon and you're good to go until I'm ready.

• You reach to play with toys on your floor gym and bounce a bout and reach for book pages when we read to you. You roll over from front to back.

This has been a really good month. So many things fell into place this month. You got on a schedule that is working for you, your bathroom troubles resolved, your nights really improved...all such blessings! You are interacting so much with us now; I can tell that each month will just get more and more fun!

Look how you've grown:
We love you, Pooka!