You are five months old! Can this really be true? I am amazed at how fast you are growing. It seems that nearly every day I look at you and I am surprised at just how big you have become. You are becoming your own little person this month. You love people. You are content to play by yourself for 10 minutes or so, but then "squawk" to get our attention and it often escalates quickly. Last month, you were content for me to peek my head in and and talk to you for a minute and then go finish laundry or whatever I was doing. This month, you want me to sit and chat with you for a few minutes before I continue on.
We introduced the mirror to you this month. You look at yourself and smile really big. Sometimes you giggle and "talk" to the baby in the mirror too. When we don't have a mirror around, we use the camera on my phone to let you look at yourself.
Physically, you are doing new things all the time. You have excellent fine motor skills, and will grab anything offered to you and stick it directly into your mouth and chew on it. You have never taken a pacifier but have enjoyed chewing on your hands. You are now an expert at doing so on individual fingers, specifically your thumb. You still have not been one to suck your thumb, but it wouldn't surprise me if you start. Because of your chewing, dozens of people have suggested that you are starting to teethe. I am not convinced though. Time will tell.
You successfully mastered turning from your tummy to your back. When we went for your 4 month checkup, you would only turn when I pressed under your arm. It was like a button and when we pressed there, you would turn over immediately without assistance, but it didn't seem to occur to you to do it without this trigger. A couple days later, Daddy put you to bed on your tummy and checked on you on the monitor about 5 minutes later and there you were, on your back! You have rolled from your back to your tummy a handful of times, but you have definitely not mastered it yet. You discovered your feet this month, but your belly prevents you from getting them in your mouth just yet. That precious belly of yours has helped you be able to sit up unassisted for a few seconds at a time.
You love being in the vertical, rather than the horizontal plane, which makes you seem even less like a baby. Ever since you were itty bitty, you preferred to be rocked on our shoulders, rather than cradled. Playtime in your Bumbo is now a daily occurrence and we introduced the Baby Einstein this month. It is amazing to see your progress interacting with it. At the beginning of the month, you would totter from one tip toe to the other as you reached for the toys. Now, you are almost flat footed, bouncing a little as you play with everything. Although you still cannot turn the seat in it.
The first of this month we said goodbye to your swaddle. You transitioned without any problem. While we are grateful that you do not need it anymore, it was hard to admit that you are no longer a newborn and put them away. Hopefully they will be used again some day.
You had a bit of a rough patch with sleeping, both at night and during naps, when you first learned how to roll from your tummy to your back. The night you mastered it, you woke up at 1:30 in the morning for the first time in months. Your daddy still gets up with you whenever you wake up, whether that is an instance like this, or if you wake up before he leaves for work. He found you on your back and tried to comfort you. After just a couple minutes, I went to help since your cry was so unusual. We think that you woke up from turning over and were scared. We turned on the lights, I talked and held you.
You are now eating every 4 hours during the day. You are extremely efficient at nursing, typically taking only 10 minutes at each meal. Although it is starting to take a bit longer since you are so easily distracted now. I can no longer talk on the phone, eat, or read while you nurse.
You typically wake up about 7 a.m. and I give you a toy to play with in your crib, while I get ready. After about 10 minutes, I come in and talk to you, change your diaper, get you dressed for the day and you usually eat about 7:30 a.m.. Your last feeding for the day is somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m.. This month we unceremoniously dropped the dream feed. There were several days where you went to bed late for whatever reason and we simply didn't do it. Your daddy was sad when he realized that those days were gone. It was a special time each night as he would feed you a bottle as nursing was too difficult with you asleep. At the end of the bottle, you would smile a great big smile and he would put you to back to bed.
You are pretty flexible when it comes to naps. When we go to friends' houses, you are pretty good at getting a 45 minute nap in. Typically you get two 2 hour naps during the day. In the evening, you often only take a catnap, but if we had a busy day, you can nap up to 2 hours.
While you are so good when we are out and about, you are NOT a fan of the car seat. Sometimes you will contentedly play with your toys, but often you ramp up to hysterical crying at record speed and there is nothing we can do to comfort you until we get you out of the car seat.
Everywhere we go you get tons of comments and compliments on your hair. They are amazed at the amount and length. Considering your hair was coffee brown when you were born, it has lightened considerably. We have played around with it, putting two clips in it and even tried a ponytail.
You are just too cute for words! It is surprising to us that we still have no idea what your eye color is or will be. It seems that every time we look they are a different color.
You are wearing size 3 diapers and 6 month, 6-9 month and 9 month clothing. It really depends on if it is a onesie, dress, or pants. From our scale you weigh about 17 lbs 10 oz.
We have seen dramatic changes in you this month. While it is easy to see all the physical changes, it is your personality, your interactions and your responses that have been the biggest change. You are a happy, social, decisive individual. We are grateful that you are our daughter and that we get to witness this progression.
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