5 months with Eric

This month has been an interesting one - sleep has been scarce, he basically refuses the bottle, he got his first ear infection and a little bit of stranger anxiety has started to creep in (though not as bad as my poor Olivia).  But luckily, he remains a mostly smiley sweet guy!

This is the position Eric would like to sleep in - on his side.  Unfortunately, gravity takes over and at some point he falls on his belly.  Most of this month was spent saving him and flipping him back to his back, or patting him/soothing him to try and get him comfortable on his belly.  We have many nights where every hour he would cry because he was stuck on his belly.  

Luckily, I think we are past that and he now prefers sleeping on his stomach.  I just love these pictures -- the fact that he scooted to sleep perpendicular in the crib, the little feet hanging out and his bottom monogram.  Love!!!!

We are (STILL) trying to sell our old house, so we made a few updates on it.  As a result, Eric and I spent A LOT of time at West Elm.  Luckily he was a happy trooper!

 He got some hand-me-downs from Olivia..

And we have spent a lot of time outside enjoying the nice Fall weather.  Probably my favorite thing to do is drop Olivia off at school and head to Starbucks early in the morning.  We sit outside, drink coffee and he loves it!

This little boy LOVES a jumperoo!  Also, notice the hand in the mouth -- that is the norm these days!  And lots of drool.

Poor little baby got his first ear infection.  Everyone in the house was sick with a cold but he's the only one who got an infection.  We learned that, like solid foods, Eric also has no interest in medicine.  We have tried every trick in the book but I'm pretty sure most of the medicine ends up on Matt/I/the floor/the blanket/his clothes.

He was pretty miserable the first 2 days, so I was glad to spend those days tucked in his nursery, holding him.  For me, the worst part about being a working mamma is not being able to be there when the kids are sick.  I do the best I can to manage and luckily we have family that can help, but it is something that really gets to me.  So I soaked up every baby snuggle I could these 2 days.

At five months, Eric is really vocal.  He loves to yell, squeal and scream.  Sometimes after a night-time feeding, he will lay back in his crib and just scream or squeal.  Its not a cry, so I don't go pick him up.  We just let him do it until he falls asleep.  Most nights, I get a kick out of it actually and think its pretty funny.  However when Matt was out of town and Olivia was sleeping in my room, she was NOT amused and poor E got a dressing down in the middle of the night!

He is also becoming more forceful with the toys.  We had a bouncy vibrating seat that Olivia loved.  I couldn't wait for Eric to be old enough to sit in it and reach for the toys.  But, we got about 2 days use of out it before he started to throw his body weight to one side and roll out of it!  Similar experience with another one of Olivia's toys she used to love at this age.  Its a little arch with various pulls/levers on it.  The baby is supposed to kick them with their feet.  Not Eric.  He scoots his body down until he can touch it and then tries to pull the entire toy over on top of himself.

This month's photo shoot was cut short because he was more interested in eating the fox than picture taking!

But despite the sickness and sleepless nights, he is genuinely a happy baby.  As soon as we pick him up the middle of the night, he greets us with a huge smile, he wakes up from every nap happy and as soon as he sees us, he breaks out into a huge grin.  We just feel so blessed to have such a smiley guy!