Adventures with raising a five month old Erich

On our recent trip to the Sunshine Coast, we got to spend some quality time with our now five month old son. Among some of the more interesting quirks he likes to do is to play a sort of abridged version of peek-a-boo. He is just fascinated by our smiles: Every time we turn and smile at him, he lets out the most heart warming giggle. If you turn your face away momentarily and turn it back with a fresh smile, he lets out another giggle - and this can go on for minutes on end.

Erich is also getting very good at grabbing at things - anyTHING including daddy's glasses, dishes, wires, and especially kleenex boxes. We always have a box of kleenex handy nearby in case of spit up, and Erich inevitably gets a hold of the kleenex box at some point and begins to empty the box of kleenex, tearing each tissue to pieces in the process!

Another interesting tidbit is that now, thanks to Grandma "Margaret" (poh-poh to Erich in Chinese), Erich is now able to go to potty. Every morning, Erich gets to sit on the potty and without much thought goes about his business...which, had it been left to the diaper, would have been a much longer and messier affair. I guess babies don't really like to poop their pants anymore than adults do! On our trip, we were unable to bring the potty, so Erich got to try out the adult potty! Check out the picture!

The final story involves getting Erich to sleep. Because he has been teething lately, the poor lad has been suffering from some pretty agonizing pain. This can often be soothed by use of teething gel, teething rings, or simply by trying to distract him by feeding him or getting him to play with his toys rather than focus on the pain. However, none of these techniques (with perhaps the exception of the teething gel) helps get Erich to sleep when the pain keeps him up. So, we've often employed the 'age old technique' of taking him for car rides when we've exhausted all other techniques. More often than not, this works wonders, but then you have the big problem of how to transfer him out of his infant car seat into his bed WITHOUT waking him up. It's a bit like diffusing a live bomb. Enter Jonathan's technique:

• Gently take his car seat out of the holder and away from the car. Set the car seat down and close the doors gently so as to not wake the baby.
• Take him into a quiet, darkened room, and slowly undo the restraints; careful not to take the blankets off though. As you undo each restraint, rock the car seat gently.
• Scoop up the entire bundle - diaper cloths, blankets and baby from the car seat and begin gentle rocking motion immediately following.
• Carefully remove each layer of blankets as you continue to rock him in your arms until such point you have removed all removable blankets and cloths.
• Check to see that baby is still sound asleep by doing the limp limb test - move each limb to see if it is limp. If they are, then he is soundly asleep. If not, you need to continue rocking.
• Place baby in crib, while holding your (warm) hand on his stomach.
• Take a deep breath and hope that the baby doesn't wake.
  

Well there you have it, the five month old update on Erich. He is a growing boy, and we're honoured to be his parents.