Hudson: 5 months (-3 days)

I am being truly and utterly serious when I say this...

WHERE THE HELL HAS TIME GONE?

I mean, seriously.... by BABY is 5 months old in 3 days? I'm baffled. Simply baffled.

Hudson had his well baby checkup today (typically its done at 2, 4, 6, 9 months and so on... but for some reason we went at 5 months). He weighed 14lbs 11oz (25th%) and "supposedly" was 27 inches long but I think that's inaccurate because, really.... we're short people. Porter is like a whole 33 inches tall at 2.5 years old. And Hudson was only 22 inches long in July. Anyhow... maybe I'll attempt to remeasure him tonight.

Its pretty funny... when Porter was a baby I felt like SuperMom.... ever doctor's visit we were the epitome of perfect parents, perfect baby. Porter was ahead of the game with most of his milestones... he rolled at 4 months old, sat at 5 months, crawled at 6 months and was pulling himself up to standing position at 7 months. Hudson, however.... let's just say I was feeling a bit like a "first time mom" screwing everything up.

It went a bit like this...

Doctor: "So he's rolling over by now, right?" (everything is phrased as if its obvious)

Me: "Uhm, well, no. He does roll to his side though. Does that count? That counts, right?"

Doctor: "Well, no big deal... we've had some babies that didn't roll over until they were 6 months old"

Me: (thinking: well, we're about to set the record.... I was hoping you'd say 7 or 8 months was an occasional incidence here....)

Doctor: "So, he'll stand up on his feet and put weight on his feet?"

Me: "Uhm, well, see... no.... not really... he likes to do this retractable leg thing. So, well, that'd be a no. Its pretty funny, really, want to see?!"

I lifted him up and attempted to get him to halfway stand on his feet. He kind-of puts weight on one foot. For a second.

Doctor: "Well, he is kind of trying to stand. We'll keep an eye on that, ok? So, he's sleeping through the night?"

Me: "Yes. Well, no. Not all the time. For the past few weeks he's been sleeping through the night without needing/wanting a bottle, but he'll occasionally wake up around 3 or 4 for his sucky to be plugged back in."

Doctor: "Don't get into the habit of giving him a bottle at this point... at 3 or 4 months old its still possible that they'll need a bottle but by this point he does not need any food to sustain him throughout the night. I'd work on getting rid of the pacifier as well... as in, throw them all away. It'll just turn into a bad habit that's harder to break later on."

So at this point I began rambling on and on about all my positive parenting points with PORTER (We did the Ferber method with Porter... he needed to have his butt patted to go to sleep so we cut him off by this point and let him learn to soothe himself. He never had a sucky past 4 months.... He was rolling by 12 weeks... he was so strong and loved to pull himself up!) and how this is my SECOND kid... why am I such a sucker for him and acting like he's my first kid and I don't know how to do the tough love parenting thing? I do NOT want to end up with a 9 month old who can't sleep through the night, or a toddler who's attached to his sucky or bottle. I had better toughen up or I'm headed for a scary road.

I do love our doctor, and I do oretty much agree with what she's told me today (he doesn't NEED to eat in the night.... it won't kill him to cry himself to sleep.... break the sucky habit now before its a bad habit) but color me crazy I have a hard time doing this stuff with Hudson. WHY? I think its because he's such a happy, easy baby that its hard for me to not want to do something for him, to baby/spoil him with SOMETHING because honestly, the kid barely asks for a thing all day.

Anyhow... that's our lovely 5 month checkup LOL!