letter to connor {5 months}

Hi nugget-
You are five months old! Actually you are five months, one week, and five days old. I'm currently working on my first actual jury trial, and, in the course of sitting in on the proceedings, have discovered at least two things: (1) our federal judiciary relies heavily on candy to keep the jury awake. As in, the judge will actually interrupt a lawyer mid-sentence and direct the clerk to pass out candy to the jury; and (2) billing 15 hours a day does not give me much time to update this blog, particularly when our crummy laptop takes 25 minutes to boot up. But, if I'm being honest, i can't really blame my tardiness on work. Meeting deadlines has never been my strong suit. For example, your father and I just sent out your baptism thank-yous this week. And you were baptized the first week of January. So, you might call those thank-yous overdue. And while we are at it, a few other thank yous that are overdue:

Thanks Uncle Hughie and Aunt Lizzy for the valentine's day card.

Also, thanks to the McManame Family & Mary Cannon in Scotland for the adorable clothes they sent Connor-- one of our favorite outfits is pictured below:

I can't believe how animated you are at 5 months. Your dad and I were just saying the other day that we wish we could use a time machine to take 5-month-old Connor back to meet 4-week-old Connor and do a side-by-side live comparison. We concluded that 5-month-old Connor would undoubtedly beat tiny baby Connor to a pulp. Mostly because you seem to demonstrate your happiness and excitement by punching things. You play with your toys like you hate them. When we put you in your exersaucer, you throttle the little Sun and yell "agooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" "wooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" at each of the other toys in turn. All appearances to the contrary, we're pretty sure you're having a good time. See below:

As mentioned earlier, tracking baby milestones is not really my forte {just imagine the pickle I'd be in if I was somehow required to write thank yous regarding baby milestones on a deadline..}. So, I'm not entirely sure what 5 month old is "supposed" to be doing, but as far as I can tell you are developing quite nicely. At 5 months, you weighed in at a whopping 21 lb 13 oz. That's off the percentile charts, and a mere 3 oz. from the weight limit on your infant car seat. Or, as your father put it, "one constipated day away from breaking the car seat." So, we got a new convertible car seat with a maximum weight limit of 60 lbs. That should last you until next Thursday, at least.

Your dad, who is the designated "baby product assembler" in the house, had to install the new seat in our Civic. It wasn't pretty. As you and I watched from the porch swing, we sympathized as he squinted as the installation manual, looked at the car seat, squinted at the manual, repeat, repeat, repeat. He eventually concluded that the red "optional" tether would never disconnect from the back of the seat, and was, in fact, just there to keep parents on their toes-- i.e. to see if you are paying attention while your wily infant tries to strangle himself with a 2 foot long rope attached to his car seat.

At some point, your father yelled "I hope we can still return this piece of crap after I've kicked it down the street!!" It never {quite} came to that, but that car seat is definitely going back to the store.

In other "milestone" news, you have recently discovered your toes:

And you love making raspberry noises all day long:

You are also thisclose to sitting up. But not quite there. Your efforts to do a sit-up take me back to the dark days of middle school, when I was subjected to the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. No, I did not get a medal. And my sit-up technique hasn't improved much since.

You are also trying to crawl, but so far have only succeeded in scooting backwards, rather than forwards.

But best of all, is the sound of you laughing. You make us laugh every single day, and bring so much joy into our lives.