he's getting cuter.
5 months today
Increasingly, the boy can play by himself, allowing us freedom to do other things. He loves to sit in his walker (he doesn't actually walk in it) and play with his links (little plastic things that link together). One of his favorite things is to stick his thumb through the middle of a link and suck it. He is becoming a huge thumb sucker (and seems to prefer his left thumb).

He's starting to hold his arms out to us. The other day, Jerry was holding Evan, and Evan put his arms out to me. Jerry said Evan "loves his mommy," but as soon as I took Evan, he held his hands out to Jerry. I think Evan enjoyed being able to tell us what he wanted and have us respond. He can communicate and be understood and that seems to make him happy.

He still makes cute "aaaaaa" noises. It's cute even when he does it in the middle of the night awake (though it's less cute then). When he speaks to us this way, he has a very serious look on his face, often furrowing one brow, as if telling us a very important story.

He is rolling all over the floor now. He spins three-sixtys on his tummy. Yesterday Jerry said he inched forward on his tummy, like a worm, to reach a toy. He also raises his tummy high off the floor in a pushup position. He's trying hard to crawl (though that's probably a couple months away).

first play date
I took Evan to my friend Maureen's house. Her girls are seven months and two. The seven-month old, Grace, napped most of the time we were there, but Evan got to play with Claire. Well, they didn't really play, but Evan enjoyed very gently touching her pretty blonde curls, and smiled flirtatiously at her. Maureen had a ton of toys in the living room, and he played with the musical pianos, legos and blocks. He seemed to like taking apart the big legos more than anything. After two hours, he looked exhausted and took a long nap on the way home.

sleeping
His sleeping habits are still in need of improvement, to say the least. He went 5 hours without eating last night (a very good thing), but then was awake from 12-2 (a very bad thing). We did everything to induce sleep in him, but he was awake. We're trying different things with his naps during the day, and thinking he may be napping too late in the day, which is affecting his sleep at night. We still don't want to try the cry-it-out method. It's a last resort.

I've started going on walks at exactly the same time every day so that he'll sleep consistently at that time (he always falls asleep within 10 minutes). I often leave the house for his next nap of the day so that he'll fall asleep in the car. I've never been a very organized person with my time, but I'm motivated to have us sleep well again at night.

Other than that, we can't wait for the holidays! Evan won't get much out of it, but I suspect he will enjoy crumbling and eating all the Christmas wrapping paper. We can't wait to spend time with family and have time off. Today I am writing my very last final, and then I'm free for 6 weeks until my final semester begins. Since Jerry has been watching the boy exclusively while I go to school and study on weekends, he is just as giddy as I am about me being done. I'll graduate in May. :)