5 Months

Abby's new teething toy. She loves it!

I'm a big girl!

Check out my cool hat, ha!

This is her at 4 months but I never posted it

Loving on mommy :-)

The video is really long but it's for our family far away

We've been enjoying a lot of firsts this month with Abby. She is growing too fast and just gets cuter and cuter everyday.

• She generally sleeps from 7:30 pm to 3:30 am, nurses and then is up for the day at 7:30 am. We've had a few setbacks here recently with her waking up around 12:30 or 1:00 am but I'm chalking that up to a growth spurt and teething and I assume she'll drop that feeding again really soon.
• She officially can sleep without being swaddled now during the night and day. I'm guessing that has contributed to the extra night wakings. She is a busy girl and that was the best way to keep her still and help her sleep longer. But now that she is getting more mobile she likes having her hands by her face and being able to find her own comfy position. She still likes me to pat her back but is going to sleep faster than a few weeks ago.
• I have figured out that she likes to sit with me in the rocker at night before bed for a little bit. It seems to help her wind down since she is so active. She likes to be held upright and lays her head on my chest. When I see her starting to get drowsy I head for her room and keep rocking for a few minutes. She usually gets fidgety which means she's tired and wants me to lay her down. So I do and then I pat her back until she's almost asleep while I say "Shhhh". That's just what she likes. Slowly I am trying to shorten the routine until she can eventually fall asleep on her own but for now I don't mind.
  
• Speaking of being more mobile...she officially can roll from back to front and front to back. Watching her do both is funny. When she goes from front to back it startles her at first and she gives this look like, "Woah! How did I get like this?". When she goes from back to font it takes her a lot longer and sometimes her left arm gets stuck and she has to rock back and forth to get it out. She hasn't quite figured out how do multiple rolls in a row quite yet. If I put her on her tummy she'll eventually go to her back and then after playing like that for a while she'll roll the other way to get a toy and be on her tummy again for a while then get tired and fussy and instead of just rolling on to her back again she wants me to pick her up.
• She has also figured out how to scoot a little bit. I laid her on her tummy and looked back a few minutes later and she'd done a 180' spin on her blanket to get something.
• She is very interested in her hands these days. She likes to clasp them together and move them up and down over her head and down to her tummy. She watches herself open and close her hands and she is getting better at holding her toys and getting them to her mouth.
  
• She has been chewing on her hands a lot, especially her index fingers and thumbs. As a matter of fact a few times I've caught her chew on her thumb and then sucking it for a few seconds. She doesn't seem particularly interested in sucking if for very long but it is kind of cute.
• She LOVES, LOVES baths and has started kicking and waving her arms so much that sometimes I get splashed.
• She is talking SO much now. If I lay her on a blanket on the floor she goes crazy talking to herself, making high pitched noises and this really funny fake laugh (see video). It's so cute. She does that when she wakes up too and sometimes we just sit and listen to her and laugh.
• She loves it when we talk to her, make funny faces and especially when we lip sync really silly to music. She has the biggest most contagious smile and we'll do anything to get her to show it to us.
• She loves to laugh and we can get her to do it pretty easily and it's so cute.
• She LOVES her dad and sometimes will just start giggling like crazy as soon as she sees him and he starts talking to her.
• She is long and skinny. Her 3 month onsies still fit her but the pants are way too short. The only problem is most of the six month ones are too big in the waist. Needless to say we do a lot of mixing and matching. Thanks to all of our family and friends we have lots of adorable clothes and I love to dress her up!
• She loves to watch her "Your Baby Can Read Video". She can be fussy and as soon as she hears the intro music she starts smiling, cooing and kicking her arms and legs. There are two songs on the video "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and most recently she has been getting fussy because they take too long to come on. I can tell because as soon as it gets to that part she stops being fussy and gets excited. Her favorite by far though is "Itsy Bitsy Spider". The word mouth comes before it with a little baby pointing to her mouth and every time it comes on she squeals really loud. We thought is was just a one time thing so we kept rewinding it and we got the same reaction every time. Too funny!
• She still takes 3 naps during the day but she is kind of a cat napper. She usually only sleeps for about 40 minutes but every once in a while she'll stretch it to an hour. But yesterday she randomly took a nap for almost 3 hours. I napped while she did and slept for two hours (It was awesome!) but got a little panicked when I realized she was still asleep because she never does that. Growth spurt again I'm guessing. I'm guessing she'll move to 2 longer naps in the next few months.
• She loves music. I sing to her every day...her favorites are "Twinkle, Twinkle", "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Jesus wants me For a Sunbeam". She also has a Metalica Lullaby CD my sister-in-law gave us which we keep in the car. When she gets fussy we turn it on and she stops right away and usually falls asleep. It's kind of like a mute button. Ha! Thanks Erin, it sure saved us on our huge Christmas road trip.
• I tried giving her some rice cereal around 4 months and she did NOT like it. She still isn't very good at moving things to the back of her mouth yet so it just kind of ran out with the drool. I tried a few times and she just got really mad. I'm thinking it's a texture thing. I decided to just wait and I think I'll try again this month. I had Bud mash up some bananas tonight for me because I was making banana bread and he gave her a little taste. She seemed to do a little better with that. I want to try veggies before introducing fruits so I'll probably start with green beans or peas. I'm going to make my own and I'm pretty excited about it. Makes me feel domestic. ;-)
• Our friends let us borrow their exersaucer and she's really enjoyed being able to stand and play with the toys.
• One of her top teeth has been threatening to come through for a while now. I can tell it's been bothering her a lot lately and it has been more swollen. Our friend gave us a new teething toy that she LOVES and that has been helping.

I hope you enjoy the video (sorry it's long) and a few pictures! I can't believe that she is going to be 6 months before I know it.