5 Months

TA-DA!! Demonstrating this month's typical pose - ALWAYS with at least one finger in the mouth, is Miss Lucy:

Holy bananas! Our Chunky Monkey is 5 months old. Lucy is growing like crazy…I estimate she weighs about 19 or 20 pounds now and is at least 27 inches long. I know, she’s a big girl! We are in 6-9 month clothes and have been for most of this month, with a few things in the 3-6 that still fit. She is a strong, resilient baby and has remained healthy so far this nasty flu season. Spending daytime with her Auntie Marcey seems to agree with Lucy; she is all smiles when we drop her off, and she gets lots of attention and playtime during the day. I think it really turned out to be a blessing that our daycare situation turned out this way for the time being. Getting her through the winter will be a big relief, and hopefully we can avoid all of this H1N1 businesses.

Lucy is such a happy baby, and really developing her own little personality. Appearance-wise, people’s first impressions are generally “look at those cheeks!” and “what a beautiful smile!” Her eyes are still a hazel color, and earlier this month she lost a lot of hair and has grown back a consistent all-over fuzz which appears to be some shade of brown. This little one is so much fun right now. She’s got smiles all day long and if you find just the right thing, she’ll giggle…which is very contagious. She’s incredibly vocal lately – it’s not really screaming, but more of what I would call shrieking. She’s typically very happy and talkative in the morning, and we have no idea where that came from.

Just so you don’t think it’s all sunshine and roses around here, though…she does become what husband calls a “Devil Child” or what I call “Miss Crankypants” at around 5:30PM, pretty much every day. Husband gets the brunt of it, as I'm usually not home yet. There’s not much you can do with her at this time; I don’t even think she knows what she wants. It usually doesn’t last long though, and then we’re off into the feeding and bedtime routine. She goes to bed around 7:15PM, and as with naps, when she’s tired, she definitely wants to go to bed and is very easy to put down.

This month we’ve also started on the “solid” foods. She’s had rice cereal every evening for a couple of weeks now. It took her a day or two to catch on, but since then she can’t seem to open her mouth wide enough and fast enough! We’ve also tried bananas (OK) and sweet potatoes (YUM after some initial yucky faces). It’s a kick to see her try something new and check out both the taste and texture. She still has four 8-oz bottles per day and drinks like a champ. The cereal was a real blessing for about a week or so, when Lucy returned to sleeping through the night…but recently she’s back to waking around 3:30-4AM. It’s as simple as popping the pacifier in and she’s fine, but this is not fun. If anyone has tips on what sleep training has worked for you, please let me know. I think we’re at a point we need to figure something out. It doesn’t seem too bad at the beginning of the week, but by Friday the lack of sleep really starts to catch up with us.

Lucy still rarely rolls over by herself anymore. It’s like she figured it out, and now on to the next thing, who cares?! She loves to spend time in the jumper, but hasn’t really figured out the jumping aspect yet. She grabs and touches EVERYTHING, and especially likes to feel Husband’s goatee (which is pretty darn cute). She has realized that certain things make noise, and is enjoying some of the more interactive toys with lights and music. She’s starting to gaze at things that are just out of reach, and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head – “how am I going to get that?” Sometimes she seems to get there and we don't quite know how. Lucy does great on her tummy and this month’s biggest accomplishment…she can sit up! It was pretty early in the month when we discovered this. We have to watch her because after awhile she’ll slowly start to fall backward or forward, but overall she’s great at holding herself upright and can sit and play with a toy in her hands.

So that's our Lucy heading into Month 5. Our big events last month were her baptism, and of course Halloween coming up tomorrow! I’ll be sure and post some photos. Events we are looking forward to in November are Thanksgiving, and getting 6-month portraits taken.