So we are now only a few days away from our son being five months old. This past week has been yet another wonderful week in the life of our son. His awareness is increasing every day and his curiosity about everything that I once thought was incredible just seems to grow as each week passes. One thing is for certain, he loves to be around people right now, follow their lips, their movements, and everything about them. I had heard that infants usually get shy around 9 months old, but right now, there simply is no shyness about our son. He still smiles at everyone and continually tries to shove everything that he can get his hands on in his mouth. You can tell at times that he gets a little frustrated when an object is too difficult for him to grasp with his tiny hands. He tries the slow approach first, steadily bringing his hand to an object, searching for purchase anywhere he can find it. If that doesn't work, he tries to swipe at it, hoping that maybe he might get lucky and rapidly accelerate the object towards his mouth. If that still doesn't bring success, he starts moaning and fidgeting a little as he desperately wants to get his lips and tongue on whatever is in his sights. Luckily, if that object is replaced with one more readily grasped by his tiny hands, he coalesces and makes do with whatever is given to him. He does have his favorite toys. Right now, by far his favorites are his oval rings, able to be strung together to form a longer chain, or simply taken apart to be sucked on one at a time. Mostly, however, he prefers the chain of them. His other favorite as of right now is a decent size red mouse with scrunchy ears that make noise and big feet that he loves to try and shove into his mouth in entirety. He never quite gets a whole foot in his mouth, but he sure comes close and the look on his face as he tries, forehead scrunched as his hands propel the foot farther and farther into his mouth, is priceless.
Our son, while rolling from his back to his front and vice versa, can now do it continuously to move slowly across a room. There is no constant rolling, over and over and over in short succession, but rather a more leisurely rolling. He likes to take his time, explore the world after he has rolled before making his next move. He can make it quite a distance, it just isn't done quickly. He is an explorer for sure. Every time he stops, either on his belly or his back, he likes to take stock of his situation, look around to see the sights and squirm back and forth. In addition to rolling, he has also figured out how to spin himself around in a circle while on his belly either to try and reach an object or so he can get a better view of what is going on around him. He is a little adverse to rolling as I thinks he would much rather crawl to get around than roll, but that is just my opinion based upon what I see him try to do. When he is on his belly, he is getting closer and closer to crawling. He can inch his way forward a little bit at a time now if he is up for it by lifting himself up on his elbows and propelling himself forward with his feet. There was even one time the other day where he managed to lift his whole chest and belly off the ground with his arms fully extended. I think, however, that it was an accident and he wasn't fully aware of what he did. Also, his arm strength is not quite there yet. It is getting really close, but he still needs at least a few more weeks before he is crawling about (once again, my opinion). Not that we are quite ready to have him crawling around, but in a sense we are, just to see him explore and become even more involved in his surroundings. Will it take extra care on our part to make sure he doesn't hurt himself? Absolutely, but anything is worth it when it comes to our son.
Perhaps the most amazing occurrence this past week happened yesterday. He woke up from his mid day nap screaming his head off as if he was in pain. I had no clue what was wrong. I checked him out, searched for anything that might be hurting him and found nothing. My only thought was that it was more teeth coming in and he didn't know how to handle it. So after screaming his head off for 20 minutes, the only thing that seemed to have a mild effect being walking around, I decided to head into the bathroom and have him stare at the mirror. He quit the screaming immediately. He had been getting fascinated with the mirror for about a week, but yesterday was the first day where he started getting involved with the mirror on our vanity. I held him up close to it and as he was staring at himself, his hands were flailing around, searching for something to grab on to. One of his hands found the knob on the mirror and he pulled it towards his face. He subsequently let it go, got a little startled as the mirror receded quickly, but immediately went to go grab something again. His hand found the knob by accident again and repeated the process. After letting go a second time, getting a little less startled, he searched for how he had done that. His eyes went directly for the knob that he hadn't seen before, but grabbed by accident, and purposefully went to grab it and pull it towards his face. He continued to pull the mirror towards him and let it close about 10 more times before getting tired of it. It was amazing to see him make the connection of cause and effect (maybe not quite that complicated yet, but it seemed like it). After he got tired of pulling the mirror close and letting it fall away, he simply tried to play with the other boy in the mirror, himself. He tried and tried to get his face close, grab his reflection, and twist and move about, all the while studying the movements that in fact he was making. We stood there for about 15 minutes before my arms got tired of holding him, but I am sure we could have stayed there at least another 15. This week was truly sensational when it came to our son and it seems each week I am amazed more and more at how he is developing. Next week, I am sure there will be something new that he does that I will be amazed at, but for now, I will take this week, cherish it, and just let him develop at his own pace.
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