Five Months Old

This past month seems to have gone by much more quickly than any other since Ellie was born. It seems like every day she does something new - though the "new things" still don't include sleeping through the night. Maybe I'll be able to include that one on her six month update!

How Ellie has changed in the past month:

• The biggest change is that she is sitting on her own now.
• She has finally developed a pretty regular sleep routine. She goes to bed between 7:30-8pm (then wakes up a zillion times); gets up for the day between 6-6:30am; first nap from 9-10:30am; afternoon nap from 1-2:30pm and maybe an evening snooze on our walk for half an hour or so.
• She hates her pacifier, unless she puts it in on her own terms.
• She figured out how to bounce in the jumper.
• She can rotate her body about 90 degrees when she's on her tummy.
• She actually enjoys tummy time.
• She has become very vocal in letting us know what she does or does not want to do.
• She seems to be figuring out how to drop things from her highchair to the floor on purpose.
• She loves petting the dogs. In fact, we have to watch carefully because she tries to hold both sides of Kip's face and pull his nose into her mouth. Yuk! She hasn't succeeded yet, but we have intervened just in the nick of time! (Kip is very willing to let this happen, by the way.)
• We sit out in the grass with the neighbors and their kids in the evening; she loves to watch the kids playing.
• Ellie "drinks" out of our cups. She became very interested in them one day and we made the mistake of letting her stick her tongue in - now all she does when we are trying to eat is reach out for our cups.
• She has figured out how to pull my glasses off of my face. She really enjoys this!
• She sucks on her toes.

Events of the last month:

• Ellie started on solid foods (if you can call them solid!) She really likes her rice cereal, bananas, and pears. She also seems to be developing a taste for prunes. She's not quite sure about avocados or applesauce yet.