Five months

Arlo and 5 months (a month late):

Arlo is five months! This month's photos show a lot about his personality right now. That is to say, they were hard to get and he would not suffer the foolishness that was his parental duo trying to get him to laugh. Sigh...

I wanted to snag a shot of him with his newest smile, but no luck. But since this is. My blog and I make the rules here is a photo of the smile- just not in the no real 4 photo format.

Arlo is: 

-Screeching! Which is much more fun than it sounds.

-Loves to chew on anything. All the things.

-Keeping a varied sleep schedule at night. Sometimes it's up only once, other nights it's up countless times. We're rolling with it.

-Still trying to kick the eczema. Found out he is allergic to several new things so we are eliminating those items from my diet and hoping he is eczema free (or at least glove free) by six months!

-Lets us read several books to him each night and seems more and more interested.

-❤️ Fantasia

-Can spend limited time outside of the gloved onsies. He won't scratch as quickly when the gloves are off (go figure!) but isn't out of them 100% of the time. [Comeooooon!]

-Spent one day hanging with Nonni and Papa and one day with Grandma while Jeff and I shot weddings. Thanks again!!

-No clue how much he weighs but he looks loooong. We will see at his 6 month appointment if that's just my imagination (running away with me... Anyone else singing with me? No? Cool).

-Such a happy man! We love this dude.

Soft Screeches

This morning Arlo woke up around 5 to eat, which is not abnormal. I fed him and put him back in his bassinet (which we will have to transition out of soon!), but he would just not fall back asleep. He’d get 90% there and then wake up. I, on the other hand, kept falling asleep (head smacking the side of the bassinet) while trying to keep up the rhythmic tummy patting or head rubbing. 

I eventually woke Jeff up and asked him to try his hand at subduing the beast since I was failing and too sleepy to continue. This was not the first (or second) time I had been up with the hungry fella, so I didn't feel bad asking for the assist. Jeff got him back to sleep soundly, but that only lasted for 3 minutes. Finally I pulled him into bed with us. Once he had settled in he looked up at me and just started talking. And talking and talking. Soft coos followed by soft screeches (soft screeches? Who knew). This went on for a good 3-5 minutes.

Today I am sleepy as hell, but that was WAY worth it. Little cutie. Let's do it again tomorrow morning.

Dear Jeff- reading

Dear Jeff,

We are not much for the mushy, but I've dreamed about you reading to our children since before we were even married.

It was even better than I could have imagined. 

The Beach!

During August we took our first trip to the beach with a baby in tow! Such little beasts require so much stuff!

On the way down we stopped to visit Arlo's coastal grandparents and

aunt/uncle/cousins. Of course he felt that was a fiiiiine time to fill his diaper to capacity. Good thing we had back up clothes packed. We were tempted to leave the diaper in the parking lot, but fearing the ecological damage that could have been done by that load, we gathered the courage to pick it up and walk it to a trash can. And by walk it I mean Arlo's grandpa held it out his car window by two fingers. 😄

When we arrived Nonni and Papa were waiting up for us with crab sun glasses. We knew it was going to be a great trip.

There were red flags the whole time we were there so we only went to the water once. Arlo dipped his toes in the ocean and howled. He sank his toes in the sand and just looked puzzled. Pretty standard for a baby's first beach attempt!

He was such a trooper the majority of the trip. We took him all over (in long sleeves poor baby!) and for the most part he did well!

Doesn't cousin Caroline look cuuute??

Some of the most fun times at the beach were had on these silly bikes. It has been years and years since I rode a bike. After this oicture was taken I damn near owed my pants laughing at just how terrible I was at picking it back up again. 

All in all the beach was wonderful. We are so thankful to have been able to spend time with Nonni and Papa and my sister Katie, her husband Dan and their baby girl Caroline.

Thank you thank you Nonni and Papa for the invite and the hospitality!!