*Baby Steps* Milestones and Benchmarks...5 MONTHS OLD

Our little boy celebrated his half birthday yesterday. I feel like I say this every month, but these past six months feel like it has taken a long time to get to but at the same time, it has flown by. Life without Vaughn would be so weird because he is our life now. Although he's only been in our lives for six months, it feels like he's always been apart of us. We love him so much. At five months, Vaughn has been so much fun. We've introduced some fun foods, he started to sit up, he is mobile via rolling from one end of a room to the other, he smiles and laughs all the time, he is easily entertained, and he is very aware of his surroundings. Something else I feel like I'm going to be saying a lot is, "I love this stage!" Five months was a stage I absolutely loved. I am excited to see what Vaughn at six months adds to our family.

3/12/10:
To celebrate Vaughn's fifth month of life and Grammy's visit, we went camping! Vaughn did a great job in the cold weather. Thank goodness we had a pop-up camper to stay in.

Vaughn weighs 12 pounds (according to our home scale)!

3/16/10: At the Buckeye baby story time this morning, Vaughn tried sitting up all by himself. Over the past few days, he has been leaning forward trying to sit up to look at the world around him.

3/18/10: Vaughn rolled a complete roll. He started on his back and went right on to his stomach and back onto his back again. He did it while in the living room on the floor so I could start dinner. He was pretty happy about it with a huge grin on his face.

3/25/10:
Today was the first day in over two months that when Vaughn pooped, he was able to stay in the same outfit! We were at baby story time at the Litchfield Park library this morning when I smelled him. I was afraid to look so I waited until we were out at the car. I slowly unbuttoned his outfit to find NOTHING on his legs, back, outfit or socks. I was super excited. I changed him then we went to TJ Maxx.

CARROTS! Vaughn has moved from rice cereal to his first veggie. I am going to make all of his baby food. I was nervous I wouldn't know how or know what to do, but it wasn't that difficult at all. I was expecting Vaughn to make a face when I first put the carrots in his mouth. Instead, he opened up and swallowed then wanted more. Later at Stroller Strides, he was on his tummy and puked some of the carrots up. Hopefully, he doesn't have any other bad reactions...3/27/10: We noticed a red patch of skin on Vaughn's face. We think it's an allergic reaction so we are going to hold off on carrots and other veggies until after we go to the pediatrician. He's still loving his rice cereal! 4/5/10: His face is still red so Dave was a detective and solved the mystery! Instead of the redness being from the carrots, it's from Vaughn sleeping with his face down in his spit all night. Carrots are back in his diet which is a good thing because he sure loves them!

We are almost out of Size 1 diapers (yes, his little baby butt is still in one's) so we decided to try Size 2 and they fit very well. He's officially into 2's. Go Vaughn!

3/28/10: First haircut. Dave trimmed Vaughn's bangs since they were in his eyes and he finally cut the tail off! It was pretty difficult to do since Vaughn's hair is so thin but we managed to cut his hair for the first time.

3/30/10: Tonight, Vaughn sat up all by himself for 15-20 seconds at a time. I even got it on video!

4/4/10: Vaughn celebrated his first Easter and peed in the tub for the first time tonight. It was like a mini water fountain. He had a huge grin on his face after he was finished. Dave was looking elsewhere so he didn't notice it until I told him to look on his arm (yep, he totally peed on daddy).

4/7/10: Our big boy ate his first dinner in his high chair. It was so much easier having him in there instead of the chair on top of the table. He seemed to feel apart of the family. He did a great job eating all of his cereal.

4/9/10: Vaughn had his first official play date/day at the mall with Ryder, Lisa and me. The boys did a GREAT job hanging out in their strollers for a few hours. He chewed on Dino (his stuffed animal lion) the whole time. When we were done shopping, we took them play at the indoor playground. Vaughn surprisingly, loved hanging out in the little boat they had. 

4/10/10:
PEARS! I finally introduced pears. It was hilarious. He opened really big for his first bite, but as soon as the fruit touched his tongue, he started to gag. Poor baby! Even though he continued to make funny faces, he kept opening his mouth super wide ready for more...4/11/10: I mixed the pears with rice cereal; Vaughn tolerates them a lot better.

Vaughn weighs 14.05 pounds (according to our home scale). I was so excited, I got online to see where he is on the baby weight chart to have my bubble bursted because he's still below the 5th percentile. However, he's gaining weight and it's apparent that he's gaining weight (love the newfound rolls on his legs, neck and arms).