Five Months

Yesterday was Emil's and Colin's five month birthday!  We celebrated with a lot of craziness and mopping the floor.  Everybody laughed, everybody cried.  It was awesome.

Emil spent the last month trying to get to the top of his weight class.  He took to eating baby food like a pro, except for all the looking around after every bite.  Unlike Colin, he actually opens his mouth when he sees the spoon coming.  Emil weighs 17 lbs!  He loves to get a hold of his rattles and binky and wave them all over the place, smacking himself in the head.

Emil loves to watch people and if you sing to him (any song), he will smile politely.  He's kind of ticklish, but his laugh and his cry sound very much the same so it's hard to tell sometimes if he's enjoying himself or getting ready to sound the alarm.  Emil and Colin have had a cold this last week and for Emil that means getting asthma treatments and a lot of scary wheezing noises.  He's very patient about it, though, and doesn't cry when he's coughing or uncomfortable - just when he's hungry and tired.

Emil has no hair, really.  His eyes are getting darker - they may just pass through the hazel stage and go to brown.  It probably doesn't count for real, but Emil says "hey" all the time.  His voice is crackle-y and low.  Emil is a fun baby - content to stay where I put him.  I can't help kissing on him even though he usually smells like puke.  Real love, y'all.

Colin isn't a huge fan of "tummy time" so he figured out how to roll over.  He is constantly moving - he digs in his heels and scoots backward and also clockwise.  When I set him down somewhere, if he's not belted in he is by the wall in minutes.  Colin weighs 12 lbs 8 oz. of pure nervous energy.  I know he looks anxious in most photos, but everything makes him smile.  All you have to do is make eye contact and he smiles.

Can you see the little tuft of strawberry blonde hair on top of his head?  Adorable!  The other night Brian and I could feel the beginnings of a tooth on both Colin and Emil.  (Bridget was oddly excited about that.)  Colin is ticklish everywhere and he will laugh for real.  At their doctor appointment earlier this week he got the giggles when the stethoscope was on his heart.  Colin likes to grab my face and talk to me after he eats.  His stories are long and interesting.

Colin loves to examine things.  He will spend many minutes feeling blankets and toys with his fingers and then he'll find a way to put them in his mouth.  Feeding him is a work out for both of us - I have to be fast to get his fists out of his mouth and the food in before he ducks his head.  But he is growing and eating.  In fact, the last several nights in a row he's needed a feeding in the middle of the night.

In October of 2003 I went to North Carolina to stay with each of my three sisters who lived there at the time.  I noticed especially at Allyn's house that she was doing something for or with her children every minute and I wondered where all that energy was coming from.  Because I needed a nap and also to go to bed at 8:30 when I was at her house.  There is something to the stuff I've heard about mothers having an added measure of strength to take care of their children.  My day began at 5:00 this morning feeding a baby and then again at 6:30 feeding another baby.  Before the day is over I'll bathe all three one at a time, feed them lunch one at a time, get babies dressed, change at least six diapers, do six more bottles, go to a preschool graduation, make a program and buy treats for 15 of my 18 piano students for their recital tonight.  It's a lot.

This is what lunch looked like the other day when I thought maybe I could feed these two at the same time.  Everyone needed a shower afterward.

Where was I?  It's a lot, but when I get in bed every night it's always with a smile on my face.  And not just because I'm finally getting into bed.  I've never been happier.  It's difficult and demanding and stinky work, but fulfilling in a way like nothing else I've ever done.  Motherhood requires a whole lot of sacrifice, but that's probably why it's so satisfying.

And now, a parting shot...