For your entertainment

Today B learned a new trick. By trick, I mean pure awesomeness! Not too shabby for this 5 month old. While he’s still unsure about crawling or rolling over, he can certainly do acrobatics! Steve fully expects to be able to toss him into the air with a flip and catch him one-handed - time will tell. I’m pretty sure he thinks we’re crazy and his assumption wouldn’t be too far off. Happy 5 months baby boy!

Thankful...

As we approach the five month mark with our little man, we are aware how fast time is flying and how many new things he is doing. This past weekend was one of the best since the day he arrived. Steve was able to be home with us and took some time away from work despite how busy the shop is. We haven’t had much family time (in the sense of spending entire days/evenings together) since the houseboat trip in July. Cherished every moment from the time we woke up on the holiday to Sunday. We really didn’t do much at all but it was just us. We mostly stayed home (except for Thanksgiving), went for walks, played games, etc - but it was our time and I couldn’t be more thankful.
This past month has breezed by. For Halloween, we planned to walk through the neighborhood in East Sac with some friends but B didn’t feel well and had a slight fever for three days. We dressed him up as a little Rastafarian/hippy (didn’t quite turn out as planned but it was fun making his costume that consisted of a tye-dyed onsie, dreadlocks, and crochet cap). His motor skills are getting better this month too. He is picking up toys, holding his bottle, grabbing his pacifier and putting everything in his mouth. B loves to practice sitting up and standing. He will lift himself up with our help and push off the ground to stand. He is far more interested in those exercises than rolling over. He has rolled over a handful of times and prefers playing/sucking on his toes.
Earlier this month, I was asked to be a part of the Uptown Fashion Night Out Show for KrazyMary’s boutique in East Sac. It was a fun, interactive show dressing in some casual and dressy holiday fashions. I couldn’t be happier being a part of Mary’s show and supporting local businesses here in Sac.
The big news of the month is that we started B with some rice cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes. He LOVES eating and is eager to help spoon food into his mouth. I went a little overboard feeding him food and probably “should have” waited to feed him one food at a time. I was “informed” that I may have introduced too much to him in a week span. Experts suggest feeding one food per week just in case there are some food allergy reactions. To each their own. I have reverted back to sticking with bananas and rice cereal for now. I was just so excited to feed him some mashed and sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving and couldn’t wait! He loves them all.
And finally, B no longer wants his pacifier to soothe! We are pretty stoked on this! When B was born, I had hoped to not give him a pacifier and hadn’t introduced it until he was about 4 weeks old (maybe 3 if memory serves me correctly). I just had this dread of weening him off of it and didn’t want to have a walking, talking toddler with a pacifier. Much to our surprise we won’t have to go through that phase!
In closing, the holidays are an exciting time of year. I haven’t been one to go crazy around this time of year and I have been known to call it the “Holiday Headache” - things are different now and I couldn’t be more excited to set up a tree, play some Christmas music, and enjoy fun holiday memories with B. I know I’ve said this in a previous post but having a child really does bring out the kid in you. Everything is exciting and new again. We love showing B new things, letting him touch everything from fruit to leaves to Steve’s guitar, etc.
How can life feel slow and in the moment when 5 months has already approached us? Neat!

Quick Halloween photo op with a fever. Poor guy.

Uptown Fashion Night Out Event with KrazyMary’s Boutique

Lovely ladies who cheered us on

Sleep-walking…4.5mos

Walking with dad

Fingers

Brisk evening walk

At Micah’s Art Reception at Sac State

4.5mos old

Playing in the bouncer borrowed from Jax

Chowing down

My love

Happy Thanksgiving!

At Grandma’s for Thanksgiving

Leaf exploration on a walk in midtown

Banana time!

Listening to dad sing and play guitar

Loves music

Feel the music

Watching intently

Interesting article on NPR about Toys and Children’s Imaginations

I will have to remember this article as B grows into a full-fledged walking, talking, little tyke.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

Children’s imaginations are an important part of development and I hope to encourage our son to play make-believe, use his imagination and be active instead of relying on a toy. Our society is heavily focused on buying children the latest and greatest toys. The research findings in the article surprised me a bit at first but after letting it sit, I had to agree with their findings. So many children today are being diagnosed with behavioral problems (such as ADD, ADHD, etc) and not to say that this is solely the reason behind it but it brings up some valid points such as this simple exercise below (taken from the article):

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

I hope to be more conscience of my child’s play as he grows and encourage an imaginative playtime with less focus on “things”.