Another video!

This one is of him in his walker.

Chance is learning to sit up on his own. He can sit up for a minute or two by himself. He reaches for toys and sometimes he can even stay sitting up while reaching. After a few minutes though he starts to slump over and then eventually rolls on over onto his side. He has also started to grab for everything and by everything I mean everything. He pulls cords and things off of the fridge and of course the trash can and he plucks the strings on the guitar that is on a stand. We have to hang that one on the wall now. We have also babyproofed a lot of other things. This is a picture of him sitting up in the laundry basket. With something to hold onto he can sit up for a long time.

Videos!!

This is one of Chance pulling a toy into his crib. He is so sneaky.



This one is one of Chance on the floor "swimming" around. He will be crawling in no time.

Just look at those chubby cheeks. They are so cute I just want to pinch them every time I look at them. Today we went to Barnes and Noble for story time. He didn't really pay much attention to the story. Mostly he was looking at all the people around him. He was very good the whole time. They made a turtle craft after the story, instead of making the turtle I drew a smiley face on the little paper plate and Chance proceeded to eat it. I put it in the stroller but now can't seem to find it so it may still be in the car. He had a lot of fun. I got to see a few of the people I worked with and some of the Moms that I used to read storytime to were there with their children so it was cool getting to show Chance off to them. After our outing Chance went right to sleep so here are some great pictures of him jsut sleeping it off. He has a couple of these outfits with collars and buttons like a pollo shirt and I think he looks so grown up in them. After his nap today he kept smacking his lips kind of like a kiss. It was so cute, he gets plenty of kisses so maybe he was trying to make a kissing noise. The weather is kind of crappy today but if it is better tomorrow I think we will go to the park and try swinging on the swings.

Bath time has turned into play time. Chance still isn’t sitting up perfectly but in the sink he uses the edge to keep his balance. I line his bath toys up on the side and he reaches for them and plays with them while he is getting a bath. It really helps the time go by faster for him and for me he is happy so the bath is a lot smoother. It’s great to see him enjoying things when he is happy he seems happy to his very core and that is a wonderful thing to see. He doesn’t mind water going over his face and head at all which is wonderful because I can’t for the life of me figure out how you could wash his hair without getting his face wet. The other day we got stuck in the rain and had to walk from the car to the apartment in the rain. Luckily I had an umbrella but still we got wet getting in and out of the car. Chance didn’t care a bit, he was smiling and laughing and having a wonderful time in the rain. He kept trying to put his hands out from under the umbrella to get them wet. I am very glad he likes the water. Not just for the convenience but I love to swim I think next time we are in Florida I will take him in the pool. I let him stand on the first step when we were there last time that brought the water up to his tummy and he did mind at all. We are going to stay at the beach for a couple days while we are in Portland at the end of June maybe we can try to put him in the water there to see if he likes the ocean.

Fun with Daddy! Fun wearing daddy's hat and fun hanging upside down. It is great to try things and see how he reacts. He seemed to have fun with both of these tricks. He has started liking peek-a-boo so I think that is what he was thinking with Daddy's hat over his head. Hanging upside down he usually has a big smile on his face. He likes flying around the room and generally being held in weird positions and feeling weightless so upside down goes right along with that.

P.S. before some well meaning person writes me a horrible email/comment about how we are damaging our son by hanging him upside down I have one thing to say to you. Mind your own business. Thank you.

P.P.S. the pictures are a little wierd on this page, sorry about that.

My sister, Kristy and I send a box back and forth to each other with a journal inside as well as a little gift of some sort. We have been sending the box to each other since I moved to New Orleans over a year ago. We just received the box from her yesterday and inside was a new toy and teething ring for Chance. The toy is a little yellow chicken that makes noise when you shake him. Chance loves it, I put him on his tummy and he kicked and kicked till he reached it and then he shook it and ate it and laughed at it when it made noise. A big thank you to Aunt Kristy for the new toy.

We went to The Old Ursuline Convent today. They have an awesome exhibit of 37 Vatican Mosaics. They have never been outside of the Vatican before. The convent is less than a block from our house and it only cost ten dollars so we went to check it out. Chance was very good the whole time. He was in the sling and through part of it I pulled him out so he could look around. He loved looking at all the pretty colors. I bought a couple postcards to show him after we got home which he also loved. We also bought a couple plants today, I am trying to get a nice bunch of plants going on our balcony hopefully I can keep them alive. I'll keep you posted on that.

This morning we went to City Park to grab a couple geocaches and I snapped a picture of him staring at me from his carseat. We noticed this a couple days ago when Scott was driving. He's figured out where we have been hiding while in the car, it's too cute.

5 months old today! It has been such a short time but so much has happened. He is doing wonderful. He is still sleeping throught he night from about 7pm to about 7am, he almost never wakes up crying any more. In the morning I hear him in his room squealing and babbling to himself. Which is great, I have time to get dressed and use the bathroom and he is usually in a better mood overall when he doesn't cry first thing in the morning. He fits in his 3 - 6 month clothes and is starting to fit into some of his 6 - 9 month clothes. He has been eating rice cereal in the morning for one month now and both in the morning and evening for two weeks. On Friday we got him some sweet potatoes and he loves them. So now he is eating rice cereal mixed with a little sweet potato in the morning and all sweet potato at night. He is still eating between 25 and 35 ounces of formula per day as well, he has started eating a little less though since he started solids. Today we sat out on the balcony and I peeled a banana and held it for him. He loved it gummed it and licked it and just generally had a wonderful time with it. It also made quite a mess but, the messier the better, right? He pushes himself around with his arms when on his tummy and scoots backward a little bit but seems to become frustrated with that pretty fast. He will reach of things that are in front of him but he still only moves backward. His little ribs are ticklish and will squeal and laugh when I tickle him. He is very aware of things around him now. He has started crying when I take things away from him. Before I would just change toys at my will but now if I move something he is still interested in he will let me know. Rosco and Chance are still getting along well, Chance runs into him with his walker now but Rosco is a good dog and just goes to lay down somewhere Chance can't reach him. Chance can now put 'mmmmm' and 'aaaaa' together all the time so he wonders around saying 'mama' all the time even though he has no idea what it means. he also says 'baba' a little bit along with all his other random sounds. When it comes to this five month list he does all of these things and has for some time. He drops toys from his chair and watches to see what happens. His little tooth is still only sticking through a little bit, it doesn't seem to bother him much but it is sure taking a long time.
By the end of month five a baby typically:
Pays attention to small objects
Experiments with the concept of cause and effect
Can see across the room
Begins to use hands in a raking fashion to bring toys near
Begins teething process
I copied the six month list too because he is also doing most of these things too. He still needs a little more support to sit than I think they mean and I haven't tried giving him a cup yet so I don't know about that one but all the others he does. He rolls from front to back and back to front all the time and fast like lightning, he also rolls both directions. When I put him down for a nap if he isn't really tired he immediately flips over to his tummy like he had been planning and thinking about doing it from the moment I said it was nap time, he's quick.

By the end of month six a baby typically:
Keeps head level when pulled to sitting position
Makes some vowel-consonant sounds
Sits by self with minimal support
Opens mouth for spoon
Reaches for and grabs objects
Rolls over and back
Drinks from a cup with help
Can hold bottle
Copies some facial expressions
Makes two-syllable sounds

He also puts his toes in his mouth every opportunity he gets. Between him putting his toes in his mouth and his little wiggle butt, diaper changes have become quite good fun.