5 months

5 months (August 1)

4 months (July 3)

3 months (June 2)

2 months (May 1)

1 month (April 1)

day 3

Lucy had her 5 month birth-aversary Monday.  It's amazing to see the progress she has made in transforming from a 7 pound blob to a bubbly, giggly girl who has found her feet. 

She has always know who we were, Jason and my voice has been familiar since day one.  But her attachment to us is far more solid than it was early on.  Yesterday I picked her up from 'school' and this is normally Jason's job so I didn't want to forget anything.  I breezed in with a mission, car seat, milk bottle, pick up the dirty clothes (she has at least 1 costume change during every day), grab the info sheet, pack the baby. 

Well, Lucy saw me before I saw her and I zipped right by her on my way to item #1 on my task list.  I heard a familiar cry and realized she saw me and wanted me IMMEDIATELY.  That stopped me in my tracks - how on earth could not grabbing my baby after 7 whole hours of separation not be my first priority!?  Bad Momma.   

Speaking of crying children, there's a new boy in school who is not adjusting well.  Ryder is 11 months old and has never been away from his mom and now he's in 'school' all day long.  The little dude has screamed for 3 days straight.  He cries when anyone comes in the room (problematic for baby drop offs) and then wails when anyone leaves.  He wants everyone (adult) to pick him up, and maybe take him home?    He will adjust soon, hopefully the teachers will be able to remove the ear muffs they are forced to wear.  Ryder can scream!  Fortunately, the other babies could really care less.  They are all 'busy' with their own things.  Heck, even Lucy pays him no attention and at home she notices everything.  The only real affect is that so far this week at school her accumulative nap time is.... 10 minutes.  Maybe once Ryder accepts his fate and realizes that there is a ton of super fun things to do at school peace will reign again and naps will happen.

At 5 months, Lucy is starting to "talk" more frequently.  Mornings are very active as she is finding her voice.  She likes it when I parrot back to her what she's saying.  I try to turn those sounds into words. " IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIeeeeeeee  love you", or "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIeeeeeeeeeeee think momma is really pretty."  She really seems to understand.  :)

Sleep wise we are VERY fortunate.  Lucy can't stay awake past 6pm.  Take a nap during the day little bunny and you'll see that there's a whole other world out there!  She sleeps for about 5 hours and wakes for a much needed food break.  The books and websites say that a 5-6 hour stretch is the expected norm at this stage.  From the reading I've done it seems as though there are parents with babies this age who are still feeding every 3 hours at night.  I tell you I would be super cranky if that was us.

Depending on when Lucy gets her night time bottle the next wake up is anywhere from 3am to 6am.  The 3am is rough because it feels like she just went to sleep 4 hours ago (oh wait, that's us).  Heck, the 5am is rough because there's really no going back to sleep at that hour, we're up at 6am anyway.   No matter, Lucy has started to wake up and at times, put herself back to sleep without the aid of a Momma or a Dadda.   We've been trying to discourage a second night time feeding and thus the second (not morning) bottle has been getting smaller and smaller.  We need to re-think our strategy though when she wakes up and it's been 6 hours since she last ate - chances are she's legitimately hungry. 

Lucy had a spell at 4 months old where she was rolling all over the place.  This seems to have calmed down.  She seems quite happy on her side and rolls to her tummy are infrequent.  However, when we plop her on the tummy for "tummy time" she tolerates it for a while.  Her head control is excellent, but I think she's going to walk before she crawls.  (That's not uncommon for back sleepers.)   

She is sitting up well, but needs some support on her lower back - and a safety hand because she is prone to herky jerky movements without much notice.  I take this as a sign that she's so confident that someone is there to catch her that she can fling herself in any direction she wants without regard to how hard the floor might actually be.  She certainly prefers sitting up to floor time, and the bouncy chair is extremely popular. 

On the food front, we've started cereal.  I'm apprehensive about moving away from a 100% formula diet.  It's so simple - make formula, drink it.  There's no brain power required.  This food thing for babies feels like it's going to be complicated.  I know I can do it, one step at a time, but just as I worry that we won't be able to send her to college or that we'll have the sex talk too late, I worry that I'll ruin her food habits with my own inability to manage a diet of mushy, but nutritious foods for infants.    Maybe that's why the chicken nugget diet is so popular, it is essentially formula for finger food eaters.  They like it, it's easy and you could figure out a way to think it is nutritious.  So far we're doing just fine, she likes the pears, apples, prunes and sweet potatoes.  Next up... carrots. 

So, that's the Lucy update.