Ben at 5 months

Our little guy is already five months old!  He’s growing up way too quickly for my tastes.  I am so thankful that we were able to come to the States with Mark so he could witness these past two months of Ben’s changes first hand, instead of through pictures.

Ben is a much easier baby than Abbie was.  Abbie was INCREDIBLY high maintenance and Ben seems to be much more relaxed than Abbie was.  Although honestly, probably pretty much anyone would seem more relaxed than Abbie was/is.  Ben definitely likes to be part of the action and he’s not too keen on you laying him on a play mat and leaving him there by himself for a little bit, but he’s fine if you’re around.  If he’s fussy, there’s a reason.  He either wants to be held, or fed, or changed, or put to bed.  He lets you know when he’s tired by trying to arch his back when you’re holding him so he can lay down.  If he starts doing that, you can lay him in his bed and 3/4 of the time he’ll just go right to sleep.  It’s pretty nice.

He will sleep through the night (10pm – 8am) maybe once a week, twice if we’re lucky, but then other nights he’s up crying for his paci 6-10 times.  We try to put him down between 8:30pm and 9pm and he almost always wakes up and is fussy for a few minutes around midnight, but then if we’re lucky he’ll sleep until at least 6:30am without waking up.  If he is up at 6:30, I feed him a bottle and then he’ll go back to sleep until 8:30am – 9am usually. He’s completely ready to sleep through the night, but as I’ve said before, I think us sharing a room with him is what’s keeping him from doing that regularly.  That is probably the main reason I’m excited about going back to Italy – to get Ben in his own room.

Ben rolls over ALL the time now.  As soon as you lay him down, he flips over, and he only rolls to the left.  He hasn’t figured out how to roll to the right yet.  He likes to sleep on his left side, but when he gets fussy, sometimes he ends up on his belly and then he gets even more fussy because he doesn’t like to sleep on his belly.  So we have to go roll him back over since he doesn’t regularly from front to back yet.

Ben drinks six 6 ounce bottles per day, give or take 5 ounces.  He loves to rub his fingers along yours as he drinks his bottles.  It’s really sweet.  He drools a LOT, so I think he’ll be getting some teeth soon, but so far, he doesn’t have any.  He absolutely LOVES baby food and gets so excited when he sees that you’re making him some food.  It took him a while to warm up apples, but so far he’s had peas, beans, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, pears, prunes, apples and carrots.  He loves his baby oatmeal and he watches us like a hawk when we eat and gets quite frustrated when we eat in front of him.

He got his DTaP/Hep B shot last week and he got a HUGE lump and red spot on his leg.  It’s the first reaction he’s ever had to a shot.  I’m glad I split up his shots.  It didn’t seems to bug him too much, but it bugged me.

Ben LOVES to laugh at Abbie.  The other day we were shopping at Kohl’s and Abbie was jumping all over the place and Ben was giggling like crazy at her.  It was really cute.  He’s also still very ticklish and Mark spends most of his free time tickling Ben.  He loves to be tossed around and smiles and laughs the whole time you’re doing it.  It’s really cute to hear his little laugh.  Ben freely gives smiles all the time and he’s generally a happy little boy.  I think he’s the perfect addition to our family.  He’s just growing up WAY too fast.  I wish I could keep him this age forever.