Mr. Eli, you are five months old now, and you're a joy to be around. You wake up in the morning all smiles, and you're smiling and laughing all day long. You smile at strangers and at the dog. You laugh at random things, you laugh when you're tickled, when we make faces at you, when I blow on your belly. The only times you aren't happy are when you're sleepy - the rest of the time you are one cheerful little man.

Your big thing right now is singing. You sing in the car and in the stroller until you fall asleep. Your singing voice is soft but every once in a while you do a dramatic sigh and get loud for a few seconds.

You're learning how to sit up - you're not totally steady yet, but with the help of a pillow or someone sitting behind you, you're doing great. Sometimes you forget to keep your balance and you topple over. I set you upright again and don't make a big deal about the falling-over business unless you're startled and cry. I wait to see how you'll react and follow suit. If you're upset, I cuddle you. If you blow it off, I do too.

You love your exersaucer, dance parties, bath time, and going for walks. You're still cramming everything you can grab into your mouth. I'm hesitant to write this here for fear of jinxing ourselves, but over the past couple of weeks you've gone from waking twice in the night, to once, to the holy land - sleeping through the night. You're able to go from 7:00 to 7:00 now and IT. IS. SENSATIONAL. Thank you so much, baby boy.

(edited: I saved this post as a draft on Friday. Last night, you woke up I don't even know how many times kicking the side of your crib, talking, whining...sooo the sleeping through the night is definitely not a guarantee!)

I feel like we're having a happy little calm right now before a whole storm of new stuff hits. You'll be trying solid foods soon, and while I'm excited for you to experiment with new stuff to eat, it makes me a little sad. You're growing up. Right now, you still don't have teeth, so you can't bite your mama. And you're still immobile so I can plop you down and know you can't get away. We're trying to soak up all this five-month-old goodness while we can.

Some days I can't believe you've been here for five months and other days it feels like you've always been here. Regardless, you have made our lives better and we love you, little man.