5 months!

Our little Jackson turned 5 months old on Saturday!  I have decided that this is definitely my favorite stage so far!

At 5 months, Jackson ...
-  has been on 6 different airplanes and in 5 different airports
- is really good at grabbing things (toys, blankets, mommy's hair and necklaces, paper, and pretty much anything else he can get his hands on)
- puts EVERYTHING in his mouth
- is good at passing his toys from one hand to the other
- drools like crazy and has been teething for about a month and a half; no teeth yet
- is finally sleeping at least 7.5-9 hours straight at night and takes 3 naps per day
- sometimes likes eating his rice cereal, but usually makes it pretty interesting for mommy and daddy
- loves to hear mommy and daddy sing songs
- loves to say "hi" and screech and squeal to let everyone know that he is here
- can roll from his tummy to his back and is SO CLOSE to rolling from his back to tummy
- has scooted backward while on his tummy a few times
- has lots of fun splashing in his tub during bath time
- likes to watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while eating his rice cereal in the mornings
- is really starting to show is personality, and I have a feeling we are going to have a little goofball on our hands!  He likes to be silly and shake his head back and forth as if he is saying "no" to us, and loves to giggle when we play with him.  He especially loves when daddy tickles him and tosses him (not very high) in the air.

Here are some fun pictures from the last month!

Look at our reverent baby!  He sits like this on his own often :)

We recently discovered how much Jackson loves to play the piano!  My future musician!

Like I said, he puts everything in his mouth ;)

Loves mommy's watch!

Our favorite game!

Peek-a-boo!

Look at that sweet drool line on his collar

My BYU baby!

These next three are Jackson screeching
while I'm trying to take his picture

A light at the end of the tunnel

Last week before we started sleep training, Jackson had fallen into a really nice day schedule.  Jackson would fall back asleep during my feeding between 5am and 5:30am and I could put him in his swing, where he would sleep until between 7:30am and 8:15am.  He then stayed up for 2 hours, took a nap that was between an hour and 1 hour 20 minutes, up for another 2 hours, then took another nap that was anywhere between 40 min and 1 hour 40 min, up for another 2 hours, and then one more nap for 30-40 min.  Then he was up until bedtime, usually 2-3 hours. 

As nice as that was, bedtime was awful!  So we started sleep training to see if we could have better nights too.  In the process, Jackson was getting up between 6:15 and 6:30, which was late enough that he was awake and up for the morning, but early enough that he was still tired.  Consequently, naps were pushed earlier, so he had to stay up later between them so as to not give him an extra nap, then wasn't sleeping well during the naps, and we had a tired, cranky baby a good portion of the day. 

I was starting to get worried that things wouldn't get better.  I gave in during the day yesterday and let him cuddle with me in our bed after he woke up early again from his second nap.  He fell asleep nursing, and I let him stay for about an hour.  I was worried it would backfire, but also worried that he wasn't getting enough sleep and was miserable all day.  By 7:45 last night, Jackson was exhausted and really fussy.  So at 8pm we decided to give in and put him to bed earlier than we had the last two nights.  We went through our bedtime routine and put Jackson in his crib at 8:30pm.  Surprisingly, it took him a few minutes to start crying, and then stopped crying by 8:45pm!!!  He then slept all the way until 4:15am!  He cried (not too hard) for about 15 minutes, and was quiet until 4:50am.  He started fussing again, and a little after 5am I decided to go in and feed him.  Well, like he did last week, he fell asleep eating, I put him in his swing a little before 5:40am, and he slept until 8:10am!  Jackson woke up a happy, smiley baby and went down for a nap 2 hours later.  Perfect schedule for us!  Now if we can get him to stay asleep all the way until his 5am feeding, I will be one happy mommy!

... And bless Jackson, that he will sleep on his nose

The title of our blog comes from our exhaustion last night.  We were saying prayers with Jackson before bed and Shawn was trying to pray while Jackson was screaming.  Shawn meant to say, "And bless Jackson, that he will sleep on his own."  Instead, he said "And bless Jackson, that he will sleep on his nose."  Needless to say, we both burst out laughing in the middle of our prayer ;)

So, night two didn't go as well as we had hoped.  Jackson actually fell asleep about half an hour after we put him in his crib (around 9:40pm), much better than his hour and a half the night before.  He woke up 40 minutes later and whimpered for a couple of minutes, then fell back asleep on his own.  So we were hopeful that the rest of the night would go as smoothly.

But, it didn't.  Jackson woke up around 3am and it took about an hour and half for him to finally fall back asleep!  Shawn and I watched an episode of Burn Notice while we were waiting for Jackson and in between checks on him.  Unfortunately, he tends to start crying even harder every time Shawn goes in to check on him, so once he starts letting up a little, we have decided it is better to leave him instead of get him riled up again by going in.  We finally got back to sleep around 4:45am.

Jackson woke up for the morning at 6:30am.  Like our book says, he has been a lot more clingy during the day, and tends to have a harder time letting himself fall asleep for naps because he is afraid we are going to leave him, which we are :(  His naps haven't been as good during the day, and he is not getting as much sleep at night.  Let's cross our fingers that things start looking up tonight!