Happy 5 months, Baby Andrew!

You are five months old today. What a sweet joy you are! The time has gone by so quickly. You are a chubby little guy and are also very long. You like to smile a lot, especially when people talk to you. You charm everyone with your grins and happy disposition.

You like to eat and get very mad when you can’t eat when you want to, but once your belly is fully, you are happy again. When you are hungry, you will grab anything near you and pull it quite forcibly towards your mouth. Attack baby, we call you.

You’ve started making a few new noises over the last week. I swear one sound is “ma-ma”, but although it might be music to my ears, it’s just another interesting thing you can do with your voice to you.

You started rolling over from your back to your front a lot over the last couple of weeks. You tend to get stuck on your belly though, and after lifting yourself up and looking around for a couple minutes, get quickly bored and start squawking for someone to roll you back over or pick you up or otherwise pay attention to you.

You’ve gotten good at reaching out for things that are held in front of you. You are strong and can muster a pretty good whack at mommy’s head with your mini-python arms.

Lately, you like to lay on your back or side and hold your hands in front of your face, turning them and watching them, occasionally talking to you them.

You love to watch your big brother and all his antics. He can make you giggle by pretending to sneeze over and over. I think you are going to be crawling after him sooner than we know it.

You giggle when mommy or daddy kiss your belly or nuzzle your armpits. Kisses on your chubby cheeks are a cause for big grins, too.

We started you on rice cereal. Or I should say, you’ve tried it a couple of times. The second time, you seemed to be getting more of a handle on this eating thing. We’re not worried.

Most nights, you end up sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed for at least some part of the night. Your favorite way to go to sleep is with your forehead tucked up against something – mommy, a pillow, whatever’s close by.

You like to touch things -- our faces, mommy's hair, blankets, the carpet, whatever.

We call you Baby Andrew. For your sake, I hope this is something that we can drop easily when you are no longer a baby. If people are calling you "Baby Andrew" when you are 35, you can blame us. :)

We look forward to watching you and your brother continue discovering and exploring your world.