Five O'Clock Shadow

The shadow I am referring to here is not of the hair variety - but rather our son Avery, who feels the need to wake up between 4:30am to 5:30am everyday, bright eyed and bushy tailed. He then sticks close by our sides, hell bent on not returning to dreamland.

What are we to do?!

Waking up so early has not only taken it's toll on me, but (obviously) the poor little dude as well. He's got some major Gucci's he's carrying around under his eyes! I really hope this stage is being contributed to by teething, growing, development... anything really. I just would like to know it's a stage. But there in lies one of the frustrations of caring for an infant - you never know what is going on.




Any incident of unusual behaviour is more than likely attributed to a common battery of reasons; the most often used is teething. It's almost humourous at this point, as I hear myself saying at the mention of Avery being fussy, "We think he's teething." At this rate, he'd have a mouth full of 60 teeth before he's 13 months old!

I do, however, believe that we are now entering that dreaded stage my sister warned me about. The period from 12 to 18 months where most children can not talk, but desperately want to communicate; confirmed by pointing and whines from Avery when he can't reach something he wants. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for him. And the only thing we can do is be patient and anxiously wait to hear his first words.