Games for a 5 month old

Yesterday I did some searching online for some educational games to play with our 5 month old, because my wife has gone back to work and I'm alone with baby all day long.  She's a teacher and I work and go to school at night, and we don't want to put baby in daycare yet.  For one thing it's very expensive, and for another we don't want to pay someone else to raise our baby.  This is the first week of school, so it's the first week of baby and I spending our days together.  I thought I should see what would be developmentally beneficial for him rather than just doing whatever I felt like.  It turns out some of the games I was already playing with him are good for him, funny how that works sometimes.

I went to this babycenter.com website that gives some games to play with 4 to 6 month olds.  I've been to the Baby Center website a few times before and find it pretty useful and accurate compared to what the doctor tells us.  Sometimes the way it's narrated and organized bothers me, but it's the content and not the presentation that's most important, right?  I hope so, otherwise half of you probably just stopped reading this page.

We tried the spice rack game, and I wasn't sure if I was getting close enough with the spices but I didn't want him to accidentally inhale any of the spice.  I didn't want to use pepper, but I tried it with cinnamon, tarragon, garlic powder, curry powder, and a couple more I can't remember at the moment.  Some he didn't react to at all really, but the garlic and the curry he scrunched up his face a little for.  I did this in the high chair, and I managed to spill a little curry powder on the restraint strap, which put an end to the spice rack game.  It was fun though, but I'm not sure how you are supposed to cook while playing this game.  They also suggest smelling other things around the house like shaving cream, but I don't think we should encourage baby to get into these things.  The smells might be so interesting that he eventually will want to taste them as well.  Not a good thing.

We don't have any bubbles.  I know it's not hard to make them yourself with shoelaces and dish soap but it seems like it'll be messy, and we have enough of a mess in our apartment right now to not need to add to it.

The "I'm Gonna Get You" game is good, but we don't follow the narrative from the website exactly.  In fact, we don't follow it at all.  I'll talk about what body part I'm pretending to eat between making "OM NOM NOM" noises and kissing him, and he loves it.

One of the classics they mentioned is the "This Little Piggy" game.  This one I already play with baby, and he really enjoys it.  It's fun and it gets a smile from him, but I'm not sure how to use it to distract him while changing diapers.  When changing his diaper I use one hand to hold his legs and the other to wipe.  We've got cloth wipes that are reusable, so we wet them down, ring them out, and wipe.  Even if we had pre-moistened wipes I don't know how I would play "This Little Piggy" without his getting poop all over the place.

It might work well when I'm trying to put his pants on, because that can be very frustrating sometimes.  Our baby is a kicker; he loves to kick all the time, which is cute when he's swimming or playing but not so great when you're trying to get his pants on.  I have to remind myself that he's not doing it on purpose, but trying to get the second leg in is very difficult.  Getting one leg in is no problem, but while I'm trying to get the second he kicks out of the first.  Playing "This Little Piggy" might be the trick to keep his legs in place while I put his pants on.

We didn't have a hard time giving baby tummy time; he's been flipping himself over and flipping back for weeks now.  I tried it their way once, and felt stupid because he's already proven himself proficient at flipping over.

The "Fly, Baby Fly" game is fun, and similar to a few games that we play with baby already.  His mother does a game where she moves his feet like he's riding a bike while she sings "going on a bike ride" with a made up, nondescript tune.  Then she holds his hands and moves them like he's driving a car.  When she's doing that he tries to pull himself into the sitting position, and she'll help a little by pulling on his arms.  After he drives the car she'll pick him up and fly him around over her head singing the same tuneless song, but this time he goes "zoom zoom zoom."  He loves it, and it's probably the first ever game either one of us had played with him.

I'll play a game with him when he's laying down where I'll get right up close to his face.  He'll grab at my facial features and I'll narrate what he's grabbing as he does it.  "Now you're grabbing my nose, and with your left hand you're grabbing my cheek, and oh, now you've got my eyebrow, that kinda hurts," and so on.  Then sometimes he'll grab me by the hair and kick me in the face.  It used to be a lot of fun but now his kicks are getting strong enough that it's starting to hurt, so the hair pull/face kick game doesn't last very long any more.

It is a lot of fun to play with him, and when I find myself getting frustrated or he's getting cranky I try to play a game with him.  It usually gets him smiling and that's an instant cheer-up.  If it doesn't cheer him up he needs either some food or a nap, which are easy enough to fix.