Hoping for Another Lovebug: 5 Months and 7 years.

Yesterday, Ben was 5 months old -- I can hardly believe it. But an even more shocking reality is that my daughter turns 7 on Friday!

The funny thing is that right now all the things Ben learns to do are cause for celebration -- hooray, another milestone reached. But with my daughter it is so bittersweet watching her grow up now. It is so obvious in the language she uses and the attitudes she adopts that she is growing up, but so often it just seems like a little kid mimicking the big kids she's around all day. It's the little things that make me catch my breath and want to hold her and wish everything would slow down. The other day we were getting ready to go somewhere and she wanted her hair in a ponytail. Instead of asking me to do it, I saw her get a hair band, put it around her wrist, pull up her hair and then pull the band off her wrist and onto her hair. Okay, it's not the first time she's put her own hair into a ponytail and it's not like she's just learned to drive, but there was something so familiar and so grown up about the way she moved her hands and did this one small act that made me pause and really look at her. She is still such a little girl in so many ways. She still snuggles with the stuffed giraffe that has been her favorite since she was about a year old. She still wants me to lay down with her at bedtime every night. She still has tantrums when she's overtired and she still loves to watch DVDs that she's been watching since she was 4. But she is also growing so independent and sure of herself in so many ways. I'm just not ready to have such a big girl. Honestly, it is hard to really remember her babyhood. But it is not at all hard to remember what it was like when she was 4 or 5, and suddenly here we are at 7!

My reading ballerina

As for Ben, well we've been working very hard on the sleep thing. I was about to lose my sanity, so I re-read Dr. Weiss.bluth's book and made my husband read the relevant section. I confess we are letting him cry a bit, which hurts my soul to hear, but fortunately he never cries for very long and we are making progress. He now naps 3 times a day at pretty regular times and bedtime has been moved up to between 6:30 and 7. Last night he slept 7 straight hours for the first time in almost a month!

He is rolling over from back to front quite regularly now. Though he first rolled from front to back he seems to have forgotten how now. He'll often get himself onto his belly and then whine once he's there. Though he's been teething for at least a month, his first tooth finally made it's appearance a week ago. We've tried Tylenol, ibuprofen, and ambesol, but nothing seems to give him much relief. He's a bit of a drool machine these days and he's always got his hands jammed into his mouth. That's no big deal, except when he does it during meal time!
We started rice cereal a couple of weeks ago and now feeding time is like a sport. Even when he eats it up well, he makes such a mess. After most bites of food he jams him hands into his mouth, and then rubs his hands all over the place, so we end up with one sticky mess of a baby. The other day after a meal he had cereal all over his hands, arms, legs, clothes, his face, and even in his ears! He also like to grab the spool and try to feed himself; he hasn't had much luck with that, but he keeps trying. His had made some progress with holding onto his toys and he is finally managing to get things other than cloth into his mouth.

I can do it myself!