We're heading out to Missouri tomorrow. I'm so excited it almost cancels out how nervous I am about flying with a baby for the first time. Almost.

The baby has been particularly grumpy today after two pretty rough nights in a row. I'm hoping he's getting all the fussiness out of his system so that he will be really pleasant for our trip. It never hurts to dream big.

Jonah scoots backwards now across the floor, which causes problems now and then. He was really stuck!

Merry Christmas!

Jonah went out in the snow for the first time today. He didn't mind the cold but he seemed confused about the wet stuff on his face.

We're in trouble. How am I ever going to say no to this face?!

We tried solid food again with Jonah today. I mixed up some cereal with prunes (he's had some trouble filling his diaper). I was a little apprehensive because the last time we tried cereal he didn't like it very much. But today, he loved it! He dove after the spoon and smacked his lips and swallowed the food great. He was definitely ready this time. Onward to the great wide world of solid food!

Kevin had an endoscopy this morning to figure why he has trouble swallowing sometimes. It turns out he has trouble swallowing because his esophagus was narrowed at one particular point. The doctor fixed it while he was in there. Kevin's day of not eating and being pumped full of narcotics left him weak and whiny so I had two babies to take care of today. What is it with men and not feeling good? It reminds me of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE

To Kevin's credit, when he was drugged up and groggy the first thing he said when he saw me was "Can you put my wedding ring back on?" It was very sweet though I can't say romantic because we were surrounded on all sides by farting middle aged men (they had just finished getting colonoscopy procedures and in case you don't know, there is a lot of farting after you come out of a colonoscopy). So all is forgiven, even the part where he repeated the same two questions over and over until his drugs finally wore off. ("What are my vital signs?" And then I would tell him just in time for his second question: "Does that mean I'm ok?" Loop that little scenario until the end of time and you have my morning.)

Jonah takes standing practice very seriously.

He loves his toy basket and will scoot and roll across the floor to get over to it.

Kevin (who loves chocolate milk) picked out the shirt.

Jonah has been really trying my patience today. Kevin's on nights this weekend, which is always hard. But when he's on nights and it's finals week and the baby is uncharacteristically fussy... what a weekend... I could very well lose my mind. These times are a good reminder though, of how lucky we are that Jonah is usually so good natured!

He's technologically gifted - he can't get enough of electronics and while this pictures was being taken he sent an email to Grandma Annie all by himself!

He figured out how to roll from his stomach to his back and now he is rolling everywhere (sometimes taking his blankies with him!)

Jonah's rolling over all the time now. He's an expert at flipping from his back to his stomach. The problem is that he's not so good at turning from his stomach to his back. This is fine when he's playing during the day and one of us is always alert and close by to give him a hand. This is not fine when it's the middle of the night and for the umpteenth time he's turned onto his stomach in his sleep, can't get back over and must scream furiously until someone wakes up and turns him right again.

I feel like he's a newborn again and requires something from one of us constantly at night. He was doing so well sleeping that I thought we really had it made. But Jonah has always been consistent in one thing: he constantly changes. Kevin has been working with him on learning to turn from stomach to back. So far it's not going well, but I have high hopes that things will get better soon. They have to - we're all exhausted over here, Jonah included!

He's become a lot more active in his jumper and gets jumping so high that it seems like he'll bounce right out of it! He's also getting much better at getting his hands on things that he wants. He's definitely his fathers child - stubborn! He will twist and lunge and stretch until he reaches the magazine/book/piece of paper he'd like to chew on. We have to be careful because he can destroy a magazine in seconds. He's fascinated by electronics and frequently tries to get my whole laptop in his mouth.

Jonah turned five months old yesterday and I can't believe how much he's changed. He has these great belly laughs now - he just laughs with his whole body, sometimes for no reason. He gets really excited when I come home from school after being gone all day. He babbles to himself after waking up. He furrows his brow when he babbles to me, like he's saying something really important. Despite the not sleeping and all the screaming at night, he's pretty adorable.