I am someone's mommy.

The other day, when I was picking up Liam from daycare, a preschool-aged girl -- probably about 3 or 4 -- stopped me in the hallway and said, "are you someone's mommy?"

I had to chuckle at the question because wow, did it ever sound weird. I am someone's mommy! I have a SON! I know it's not particularly weird to be 30 years old and have a 6-month-old child, but it still makes me laugh/scares me to death sometimes that I'm responsible for raising a little boy. I'm the one who's going to help him with his homework, teach him to drive (OK - that might be Brad's job), walk him down the aisle, and babysit his own children. And I still feel like a kid myself most days. Weird weird weird.

On a less-weird note, Liam has another cold. I figured he was due, since he has made it a whole month without the daycare plague. Aside from the concrete in his nose, he doesn't really seem worse for the wear, and despite waking up every 2 hours last night (which is sometimes a normal thing for him anyway), he's his happy, cheerful self.

6 months!

Liam turned half a year old on Tuesday of this week! I can't believe that he's already been with us for 6 months (although, according to my due date, he shouldn't have turned 6 months until February 7 -- I still can't believe he came 2 weeks early). This month he started sitting up on his own, and he is trying SO hard to do the army-crawl thing. He can turn himself from side to side, but can't go forward or backward yet. He has also started banging toys on the floor, which is cute. Cute, but headache-inducing!

He's still not very verbal (he coos and squeals, but none of the mamamama dadadada stuff that he "should"(??) be doing, according to my What to Expect book) but I keep telling myself not to worry and that it will come soon. He has his 6-month appointment next week, so I'll be sure to ask the doctor about that. Ahh, the worries of a first-time mom!

He's sleeping a little better at night...usually from 7:30-4 straight, and then a nap from 6-7 a.m. We've tried pushing back his bedtime to no avail (even if he goes to bed at 8, he still wakes up at 4) so we're sticking with the early bedtime to make sure he's getting enough sleep. And yes, we've tried everything -- later naps, earlier naps, dream-feeding, et cetera ad nauseam. I think we're just going to have to accept it for the time being. My saint of a husband usually gets up with him at 4 and stays up with him until 5, so as long as I go to bed early enough, I get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, which is plenty!

Thirty.

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. Truth be told, it started out as a little bit of a bummer of a day; Brad was out of town for work, and I woke up in a bad mood. But then things improved as the day went on. I got flowers, I got phone calls from all the people I love, and a dear friend offered her babysitting services so I could go to the gym. Then, last night, two of my best friends came over and we watched Twilight, ordered Mexican food, and drank wine. As an added bonus, Liam has started sleeping better thanks to my self-designed "sleep training" (more on that in another post), so I got a decent night of sleep.

A few years ago, I had a very different vision of how I'd be celebrating my 30th birthday, which did not involve a quiet night at home. But you know what? Aside from Brad being gone, it was perfect. Not to brag, but really, who thought my life would be this awesome at 30 years old? I have an amazing, beautiful son who is the absolute love of my life; a wonderful husband who is my best friend; a great family; a fulfilling job; and a perfect home that is still standing (despite our best efforts to burn it down!). I never thought things could be this good.

5 months!

Wow, am I behind or what? I can't believe I used to be a once-every-other-day blogger. To my credit, work has been crazy and Brad & I were MIA for a week in his hometown. I promise to post more regular updates starting in January.

Liam turned 5 months on December 26th. He is:

-Rolling over like a mad man, making diaper changes close to impossible -- I do them on the floor now to keep him falling off the changing table.

-Sleeping on his stomach. I put him down on his back and he always flips over sometime during the night. The first time I walked into his room and he was fast asleep on his tummy, I freaked out. But there's not much I can do now! (Can you blame him? I hate sleeping on my back.)

-Sitting up unassisted! Well, for about 30 seconds to a minute before he loses balance and topples over, which is why we stack pillows around him (see picture above).

-Eating peas, carrots and sweet potatoes. He seems to love peas the most, which is hilarious, considering that they're the one food I won't touch.

-Teething(??). He has all the obvious signs, but we don't see any teeth poking through yet.

-Not sleeping well at all. He's regressed to 2-3 wakings per night and sometimes has a hard time going back to sleep after he eats. We had to stop swaddling him when he started to roll over, which doesn't help. I also think teething is a factor. I know he's capable of sleeping through the night, so I keep telling myself this is a phase (that's been going on almost 2 months...?)

That's how he rolls

Yesterday Liam mastered one of his most exciting milestones yet -- rolling over! He's been able to flip over onto his back for awhile now, but I don't know if that counts -- I think "rolling over" really means going from back to tummy, right? He hadn't had much interest in doing it aside from the occasional half-hearted back-arching, so imagine my shock when I got a call from my mom (who watches him on Fridays) telling me that he just did it 5 times in a row!

I joke about putting him through "boot camp" to get him to roll, but we've really been working hard to get him more comfortable on his stomach over the past few weeks, and obviously it's made a difference. Now that he's learned to roll over, the kid won't stay on his back! He's rolled over at least 20 times so far today, both to his left and his right. Of course Brad and I make a huge deal of it every time, so I almost think he's just doing it to get a reaction out of us. Once he pushes himself up on his stomach, he gets a huge grin on his face and screams in delight. It's the cutest thing -- I need to post a video.

Rolling over is the precursor to the milestone I'm NOT looking forward to -- army crawling. Our house is so un-babyproofed it's not even funny!

No words

...for this cuteness.

We're tired.

As I said a couple of posts ago, our former good little sleeper is no longer sleeping through the night. For a month or so he was sleeping from 8-6, which was amazing. Then, he got a cold and an ear infection, which put him on a newborn schedule again. But two weeks after the sickness, he's still waking up twice a night and is up FOR THE DAY AT 4:30 A.M. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a morning person, but 4:30 a.m. is ridiculous.

Brad handles the first night wakeup, and sometimes the second, too. But since our bedroom is right next to Liam's, each time he cries, I wake up, too, and it's hard to fall back to sleep. And then I'm up for good at 4:30.

HELP.

I have not been this exhausted since my freshman year of college.

I've done a lot of reading on the four-month sleep regression and it sounds like we're just going to have to wait it out for a few more months. (One of my friends went through it with her little boy, and he JUST started sleeping through the night again at 11 months. Ugh.) Each time he wakes up he's ravenous -- which means he needs to eat. There's no point in trying to soothe him back to sleep.

All I can say is thank God for coffee.