Caden — 5 Months

Caden’s picked up a slew of new skills this month!  I remain amazed at how quickly babies learn new things and how they fit into the world.  We’re having so much fun with Caden right now, especially as his little personality is coming in and we’re starting to see a little of who he is going to be.

• Caden’s gotten so much better at sitting up on his own.  He still needs a little help with balance here and there, but he’ll sit comfortably for thirty or forty five seconds without too much trouble.  He just barely fits in the Bumbo at this point, so it’s a good thing he’s learning on his own!

• Caden is such a big boy.  He’s just shy of 16 pounds now and his 6 month clothes are getting too small.  Shopping for more clothes is in our near future cause these just won’t fit for too much longer.  He’s going to catch Kamy soon … it’s just a matter of time.

• At the tail end of our Colorado trip, Caden had his first tooth come in!  Fortunately he didn’t seem to have too much trouble with teething, though he was fussier than usual at the time.  My finger is no longer a chew toy, as that little tooth is sharp!  Ouch!  It’s his lower middle right tooth.  Kamy’s first two teeth came in at seven months old, so he’s ahead of her on this milestone.  Concurrent with the arrival of teeth is the arrival of dribbles.  Caden’s nearly always got a bib around his neck now to catch the drips and prevent needing to change his outfit several times a day.  He also loves to suck on his shirt, his bib, or my shirt sleeve.  He likes to hook his thumb around the fabric and suck on it that way.

• Sleeping is getting better, though we’re still a far cry from an easy night.  Caden hates to go to bed and will fight bedtime and naps like crazy.  I’m still keeping him swaddled at night, it seems to help with the transition to his crib.  He promptly busts out of the swaddle with one or both arms as soon as he wakes up.  I’ve been putting him to bed around 8:30 or 9pm depending on how sleepy he is.  He’ll usually wake up two or three times before midnight and then hit a long stretch of sleep.  He’s not really sucking his thumb or self-soothing yet either, so that’s not helping his case.  I’m trying to start putting him to bed still awake but it’s a losing battle most of the time.

• Caden’s laugh is so adorable!  He has a very staccato laugh and it makes his whole body wiggle.  I love listening to it.  He likes to be tickled and loves to smile with you.  He still is a great smiler and his whole face lights up when he smiles.  It’s so contagious!

• The Caden dance is one of our little tricks to bridge the gap between a fussy and a happy baby.  Sometimes Caden will sit on the edge and vacillate between the two … but the Caden dance can usually make him happy instead.  I don’t have it on video yet, but it involves much arm waving and body vibrating and results in a huge grin.  =)

• Caden’s quickly becoming a traveling man.  He can now roll over either direction and will often travel across the floor.  Just because I set him down under his play gym doesn’t mean that’s where I’ll find him when I come back.  He is rolling intentionally, but he’s not quite figured out what it means to move.  I’m sure that will come soon enough!

• I’ve been giving Caden rice cereal for the past two weeks or so.  He’s not particularly interested and he tends to spit it back out as soon as I put it in his mouth.  He also makes an awful face like I’m feeding him some sort of nasty medicine.  As Kamy put it, “Caden doesn’t like it.”

• Caden vs church is not going well.  Our current record is Caden 9, Church 1.  That’s pretty pitiful!  I usually keep Caden with me for class and then leave him in the nursery for service.  The one time we did make it all the way through church he took a nap in his car seat.  The ladies in the nursery are such troopers for trying again and again each week, but I nearly always get paged and come to find my son crying hysterically.  It’s mostly because he’s exhausted and is fighting sleep.  Granted, as soon as I come in and hold him, he stops crying immediately.   He’s not exactly happy, but he’s no longer wailing.  Apparently, he can tell when I strap him into the car seat that we’re going home, cause as soon as I get him in the car he falls asleep.  Bear in mind, it is a total of three minutes from the church parking lot to our driveway … and he’s out like a light.  <Sigh>  This was particularly annoying last weekend when it was pouring rain at the time and I ended up soaked from bundling two children into the car in the rainstorm.

• One of Keller’s tricks to get Caden to go to sleep is carrying him on his arm.  Caden’s too long to fit comfortably on my arm, but for now he fits just right on Daddy’s.  Here he’s sleeping at Home Depot after we ordered new kitchen counter tops.  Sweet sleeping boy …

• Our Caden is a baby of extremes.  For the most part, he’s either 100% happy or 100% unhappy.  We don’t spend much time in the middle ground.  Fortunately he is happy more often than unhappy, so that’s a positive!  It amazes me how he can go from just fine to bawling and back again in moments.  One thing is for sure, he’s definitely got an opinion!

We love you Caden!

Sorry there weren’t any more photos of Mister Caden this month.  I left my camera in DFW at the tail end of our Colorado trip and I won’t have it back until next week.  Oops!  My phone doesn’t take photos fast enough to get a good shot, so we’re stuck with these few.  =(