on five months old

I was forever preparing myself for the "typical milestone" months--3, 6, 9--and then eventually 12. I never thought that month five would be such a time of change and growth for us. My nephew is almost five months older than Maddox. Five months is a lot of things when you're talking about babies. Five month old babies can roll over and talk and pretty much hold themselves upright in the sitting position if you keep a hand on their back. Five month old babies talk and blow raspberries and drool and make hilarious screeching noises in public. Watching my nephew be five months, and holding this itty bitty seven pound newborn in my arms, who I thought would shatter if I held him the wrong way, I could not even fathom Maddox at five months. It seemed impossible. Just like now, now I can't fathom him walking or talking or starting school or having his first girlfriend or graduating high school and going away to college. My mind cannot comprehend these milestones that this boy will someday reach.

But here we are a week into month five. We've got a child who absolutely loathes his carseat. Let me be more specific, we've got a child who loathes being placed in his carseat. Get him in (which takes approximately 10 minutes these days) and you're good. But good luck getting to that sweet spot with a child who has perfected "light as a feather, stiff as a board." And to think that his carseat used to be his favorite. To think that we had a child who would simply slide in and allow us to buckle him up without stretching out and arching his back and ripping the Velcro monkeys off the straps and instantly crying. TO THINK.

But this stage is so much fun, too. I wouldn't trade these mild carseat temper tantrums for anything. I love his attitude and personality that is developing, even over the smallest of things. It's so funny to think that five months ago we were just bringing him home from the hospital, just getting to know this little person outside of all the kicking and stretching inside of my belly.

Five months doesn't seem like a very long time. In the real world, it seems that not a lot can change in 150 or so days. But five months has made my baby boy ten pounds heavier, quite a few inches longer and heaps and heaps sweeter. I couldn't imagine him at five months and I couldn't imagine how much more I could love him than on the day I first met him. But here I am, my heart exploding bigger and bigger with each dimpled smile and each flirtatious eyebrow raise. Every single day I love him more than the last and it's not something I could ever explain with all the words in the world.

These past five months I've gotten less sleep than I've gotten in a long, long time; I've cried many a tear; gotten in the most ridiculous fights with Evan over things like where to place the diaper straps and how much desitin to use and who forgot what this time; I've been frustrated and happy and over the moon and confused and blessed and exhausted and content. I've been a lot of things and felt all of the feelings and thought a lot of thoughts but most of all, most of all over these past five months, I've been so incredibly, ridiculously, unbelievably happy.