5 Months Old - Teething, Weaning & Solids

     Emerson will be 5 months old tomorrow. I can't believe how time flies. I'm sure I say that every time I write a monthly update but it really does. I had to pack up even more of the clothes he's outgrown. I know it's silly but it makes me so sad. I want him to stay a little baby forever. I love his little gummy smile.
     We've had a rough go of it the past few weeks and even more so in the past few days. We've entered the dreaded teething stage of his development and he's miserable. I mean miserable. To add insult to injury, I've recently started taking a medication that makes it impossible for me to breastfeed anymore so now we're also weaning. He's not too happy about it. And neither am I. Naptime and bedtime are especially hard. Although, because he hasn't been napping for very long during the day he's definitely sleeping longer at night. Slept for a good 10 hour stretch last night. He's never done that before.
     It hasn't all been bad though. Some really great things have happened recently as well. We have started Emerson on solid foods. Hurray! The doctor said he was more than ready to start when she saw him at his 4 month check up. We wanted to wait a couple of weeks before we introduced him to anything new so we just started this past week. He has taken to it like a champ. All the books say start off with runny rice cereal and do that for a couple of weeks before you introduce canned baby food and then only introduce one new food a week. We thought that was kind of silly. We did start with the rice cereal. He had that for a couple of days and we kept making it a little thicker each time and he had no trouble adjusting. We introduced canned baby food - a new food each day - and he hasn't had any trouble adjusting to that either. The little chunk didn't need to wade into this one - he just jumped right in and is doing just fine.
    He's also becoming a lot more mobile. I'll put him in his crib one way and come back a couple of minutes later and he's turned a complete 180 degrees. He's also rolling over more. Both from his tummy to his back and from his back to his tummy. I've haven't actually seen him roll from his back to his tummy yet but I'll put him on his jungle gym mat on his back, throw a load of laundry in the washer and when I come back he's just chilling on his tummy like it's no big deal.
    He has also recently developed a fascination for Luna's toys even though he has toys galore. Luna likes to put her toys next to him in the hope that he'll throw them for her to fetch. It's the cutest thing. Instead of throwing them though he just holds onto them. Luna will try and take them back and he won't have it. Screams and screams if she takes them away. The kid needs to learn how to share! :)