You know you're a bad mom if...

...you resort to giving your 5 month old baby a lollipop so he'll stop fussing.

Yes, it's true. I am that bad of a mother. But if you took me before a judge, all I'd have to do is plead insanity and I'd get off scott free (especially if the judge had kids).

You have to understand, Caleb had been grunting at me for hours. Not crying, not fussing, but grunting. No matter what I did -- and I even tried feeding him when he wasn't scheduled to be eating -- he just kept on grunting. And it's not a happy noise. If he was still in his newborn stage where he pooped after almost every feeding, I would have assumed that's what he was up to. But these days, he only poops about once or twice a day and usually always in the morning. So he just grunted and grunted and grunted without any results.

We went down to the office (APX's office here is just another apartment which happens to be in our same building and on the first floor, making it the easiest place to visit when we need out of our apartment). At first, that was enough to satisfy Caleb. New things to look at, new person to stare at. But then the grunting resumed. The candy was just sitting there on the table next to me looking so inviting, and I caved. But the kid was still sitting in my lap and I was monitoring him closely -- and yes, the wrapper is still on -- so hopefully I'm not too bad of a mother after all.

While we were down at the office, I was sitting on a long table with Caleb on my lap and he decided he wanted to sit all by himself (still in my lap though). He sat there for a really long time without leaning against me in any way. He wasn't even holding my hand to help him balance. Just sitting there. It was rather adorable.


And later, when he gobbled down his rice cereal, he didn't slump to one side in his booster seat, but sat up real good and wiggly, looking around at everything.

He's also definitely mastered the art of rolling over from his stomach to his back. I guess all that time that I was worried about his hit and miss ability to roll, I should have just been putting him on his stomach. He hates it so much, he's quite eager to roll back over to his back.

When it came time for bedtime, I think both Caleb and I were more than ready.