.five months.

1.25.2017

Five months.

Axel can roll from his front to his back and from his back to his front. He doesn't do either often because he still hates to be on his tummy.

He loves to suck on his toes. They are currently his favorite "toy." We can almost always distract him with his toes and socks!

He has his moments where he is pretty good at sitting up by himself-even without supporting his weight on his hands sometimes. It's kind of hit and miss these days, though. He just gets so excited and wants to be standing, so it's kind of hard to get him to bend at the waist sometimes.

He loves to play in his exersaucer and he really LOVES his jumper! He is so good at jumping and can get his feet like three inches off the ground sometimes!

His ribs and thighs are ticklish. He usually laughs when I tickle his thighs. When I tickle his ribs he just makes a little squealy sound...almost like it takes his breath away.

He loves to give me kisses! He will grab a chunk of my cheek or neck and pull himself to me with a wide, open mouth, slobbery kiss. I love it...even though I feel like he should have a chunk of my skin in his hand when he is done. He has a very good grip!

He knows his name and will sometimes turn to look at me when I address him.

He thinks his sisters are hilarious! He loves watching the girls run around and play. He laughs mostly at them...and mostly at Alya as she loves to interact with him. Lyla is too busy in her own world most of the time!

He likes to play peek-a-boo and he loves to look at himself in the mirror. It's Dad's favorite distraction technique!

Axel loves the tub! He has figured out how to splash when he's laying in his sling by getting his feet over the edge and kicking. He likes to sit in his sling, too and look at the design, and of course he likes to slap the water to make a splash!

Some days he takes great naps! Mostly we get at least 45 minutes to an hour out of him, but some days he will sleep for almost 2 hours. He is taking three naps these days.

He has also started eating solids pretty consistently. He eats his oatmeal cereal and we have also given him applesauce and pears...and whipped cream.* I think the whipped cream is his favorite!.

One of my favorite things that Axel does right now, is he will stick the tip of his tongue out and curl it around his lip...so just the tip is sticking straight up out of the side of his mouth. It's so cute...and lately when he does that he has been making a little slurping noise and it's so funny!

He also likes to sleep with his blanket over his face. Axel was given a soft minky-like blanket when he was born. We both love it! And it's obviously his favorite because no other blanket on his face works like this soft blanket works. It makes me so nervous that he sleeps with a blanket over his face (we are working on just having it touch his cheeks rather than cover his whole face) but he loves it!

*Side note, because I just think this is too cute:

I usually mix strawberry powder of chocolate syrup in the girls' milk. We keep the chocolate syrup in the door next to Matthew's can of whipped cream. He likes to spray the whipped cream straight into his and the girls' mouths, but we have never really told them the name of this substance. Anyway...one day Lyla asked me if she could have some white chocolate. It took me a minute but I figured out that she was talking about the whipped cream. I may just have to refer to whipped cream as whipped white chocolate from now on!