5-Month Photos

We decided to book some milestone sessions with a photographer so we'd have some pictures of the two of us with Emily. Our first session was Saturday, and I really loved this photographer's galleries on her website, so I was looking forward to it. Here's a "sneak peek" at some of the pictures, and I should have a full gallery in a week or so.

Checking Things Out

Emily is now a pro at rolling over from her tummy to her back, and is quickly mastering rolling the other way too. It's sweet to watch her, because it seems to startle her for just a second after she turns over. Then she realizes what she's done and she's so pleased with herself. This new trick makes it a little easier for her to entertain herself, but a little more difficult for her to take long naps during the day. For the last few days, she's only been taking a few 30 or 45-minute naps during the day, and she's completely worn out by bedtime. I have read that each time babies learn something new, it usually disrupts their sleep for a little while.

Emily has also discovered her feet now! Most of her pjs have little animal faces or other decorations on the feet, and she is just mesmerized by them. In the past several days, she has started to grab at them, and then decided she liked her feet with nothing on them too. When we sit her up, she will lean over to touch her feet and even tried getting her toes in her mouth once.

5 Months Old

This has been an eventful month! Emily has transitioned from Georgia Peach to North Carolina Tarheel, and has reacted to every change like such a big girl. It's such a difference to think back to her first couple of months when she cried so much and hated getting in her carseat--now, she has such a great time exploring the world around her, and loves going for rides in the car and her stroller.

She's definitely growing into a sweet little girl right before our eyes. I feel like I post so often about her happy personality, but she's just such a joy to be around now--she smiles and laughs all the time, and it just melts our hearts. Mick is especially good at making her laugh by being silly with her, and one of these days, I'll actually capture a video of it!

One of Emily's favorite times continues to be bath time. She has a couple of toys in the bath with her now, and I think she'd be happy to stay in the tub until her little fingers and toes looked like raisins. Her bath thrills her every night, and really helps to settle her down for bed. She loves giving her rubber duck sloppy kisses. Actually, she loves putting everything in her mouth these days!

We're making lots of progress with eating solids. Emily's rice cereal now has some fruit in it, and has progressed from pure liquid to a much thicker consistency that really seems easier for her to eat.

In the last couple of weeks, Emily has become much more aware of Gracie and Bella, and loves to see their tails wag. She has put her hand out a few times and it quickly gets licked by Bella--this delights Emily and always makes her laugh. Bella also likes to keep a close eye on little Wiggles!

Next month will mean more big changes--starting school, and having to get used to not having her Grandma around all the time! We are convinced this will be a much more difficult change for all of us than it will be for Emily though.

Sleeping Like a Big Girl!

Emily has done so well since we decided to let her start going to sleep on her own at night. Luckily, there hasn't been much crying it out at all, which has been a lot easier on us! We've gotten into a regular routine at night--she eats some cereal, takes a bath and then has her bedtime milk (she's up to about 6 oz. at most feedings now!). By the time she finishes eating, she's usually getting pretty sleepy, especially if we're upstairs in her room where it's darker and quieter, so she'll go right down in the crib with no fuss most nights. It's great that she's sleeping without the Woombie too, because she gets to move her little arms and legs all she wants! She looks like such a big girl all stretched out in her crib.

She has still been waking up once a night to eat, but last night, she slept through the night! She went to bed at 8:30 PM and didn't wake up until 5:00 AM! We're not expecting this to continue happening every night, but it's a start. It was definitely a strange feeling though--we panicked a little at first, wondering if we slept through her crying, but then decided we couldn't have done that. She was obviously fine and happy when she woke up, so that's what was important.

Bibs

Mick has been wondering when we'd use all the bibs Emily has--now that she's having cereal on a regular basis, we're getting to try on some of these cute bibs. Here are a couple that she modeled this week. She smiles as if she has no idea how accurate this description is :)!
These are both prior to eating, so they're a little cleaner than they end up when she's done!

The Search for the Perfect Day Care

I decided I needed to take the afternoon off on Wednesday in order to secure a spot for Emily at a day care. We all knew my mom couldn't stay with us forever, and we've had September in mind for the past couple of months as the date we'd transition. Emily will be 6 months old, and we thought that was an age where we wouldn't feel like she was so tiny and helpless.

I set up tours with four places that were all rated as 4 or 5 stars (the highest ratings) by the NC Division of Child Development. The tough thing for us is that we had a great place picked out in Atlanta before we moved, and now we had to start all over! The other tough thing is that a couple of the places we were excited about seeing initially had wait lists of over a year, so we had to take those off the list. I told Mick that even if we'd known we were moving when I was pregnant, it still might not have been enough time!

After leaving each of the first three places, I called Mick in tears. Nowhere was going to be good enough for our little Wiggles! Maybe it was the cribs lined up against the wall that made me feel like I was in a baby prison, or the fact that none of the people seemed like someone I wanted to hold Emily--whatever it was, I came away wondering how I could resign and be a stay at home mom. The fourth place, Gateway Academy, was different. I got a good feeling from the minute I walked in the door, and it just felt like the right place. The people were fantastic, and all of the kids seemed genuinely happy to be there. I liked the place and the curriculum, and it's only a few miles from home. I even singled out a little girl about Emily's age who I just know will be her best friend :).

Emily would start out in the Infant 2 room, which is babies from 6 to 10 months. Since she'll be right at 6 months when she starts, they thought it was better to start her there rather than have to transition her twice (once when she started in the 0-6 month room and once a couple of weeks later). They also recommended that we move in gradually--so one day I might go in with her for an hour or two, then I'll drop her off for an hour or two, then maybe go a couple of days a week. I like the idea, and hope that will be easier on both of us than just dropping her off on day one.

The next step is for Mick to go with me and see the school; then we'll pay a registration fee to hold a spot for Emily and choose her start date. While I still know that dropping her off that first morning will be the toughest thing I've ever had to do, I now feel like this is the best thing for her. There was a one year old boy in one of the classrooms who had just started day care for the first time, and he didn't stop crying the whole time I was there. The teachers said the transition had been really difficult for him, and I can't help but think that the older she gets, the harder the transition will be for Emily.

Trying Rice Cereal

Another thing the pediatrician told us at Emily's 4 month check up is that we could start trying to feed her rice cereal--at the time, I didn't think she was ready. As the weeks go by though, Emily becomes more and more interested in what we're eating, and is much better at sitting up (two of the signs she's ready for food), so we decided to give it a try.
She definitely knew what to do when the spoon came close to her mouth,


but the swallowing part still needs a little work!

She opened and closed her mouth at the right times to take what was in the spoon, and then spit it out each time.

We don't know if she's not quite ready or just isn't used to the taste yet, but we'll keep trying a little bit each night until she's mastered it!

Sleeping Like a Baby

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the pediatrician told us it was time to start letting Emily cry it out at night. Since we were in the middle of our move, we decided to hold off and give her some time to settle in before we tried everything new at once. We also weren't totally convinced that Emily was getting enough to eat during the day to go all night without eating. Lately, she's been going to bed (with the Woombie on) between 8-8:30 at night and will sleep until about 2:30 AM before waking up to eat. We feed her, put her right back to bed, and she'll sleep until about 5:30 AM. Since that's the time we usually get up, we feed her again and put her back to bed. She normally will sleep until about 8:00 AM and then she's up for the day (minus naps).

This week will be the first week I'm not traveling since we moved, so we decided it was the right time to try sleeping differently. Still, we want to take this one step at a time, so last night after her bath, Emily put her pjs on, but not the Woombie. She ate her bedtime meal, went to sleep by about 8:30, and I put her in the crib. It's so sweet to see her sleeping with her little arms and legs all sprawled out.

She woke up around 10:30--usually, when she's sleeping with the Woombie, she'll wake up and put herself back to sleep pretty quickly. Without the Woombie, it's a little different...so I let her cry for 5 minutes before going in to her. I never knew 5 minutes could last for an hour! It's agonizing to watch that precious little girl on the monitor, and it makes you feel like the worst parent in the world! I went in, picked her up, and she was instantly fine. While it feels great to be able to soothe her so easily, it also makes you realize that she's really figuring out how to work us to get what she wants! She went to sleep on my shoulder and I put her back down, but a couple of minutes later, she woke up crying again. This time, I let her go for about 8 minutes before going in, and the same thing happened. The third time, she cried for 10 minutes and then fell asleep. She slept until 4:00 AM!

At 4:00, we knew she was hungry, so Mick got her up, changed her and fed her, and she went right back to sleep. We took advantage of the situation and went back to bed too. At about 7:00 AM, she woke up for the day. For our first step in changing the sleep routine, we feel like it was pretty successful!

Getting Stronger

Emily seems to get stronger and more active with each passing day--she's so interested in everything around her, and Mick has commented that she'll try to jump out of your arms if she's looking at something intently. She has such a happy little disposition, and is such a cuddle bug. We just love coming home to her. I got home from a two-day trip last night, and Emily was already sleeping when I got home. I told Mick that as bad as it sounded, I just couldn't wait until she woke up in the middle of the night so I could hold her!

Emily is almost impossible to keep under control during bath time! She kicks like crazy and has the most fun. We had to move her to the tub (rather than the kitchen sink) because we got tired of drying everything in the kitchen when she was finished. We've also started to give her a couple of toys in the bathtub...we may never get her out of the water now!

I've heard that all babies enjoy looking in the mirror, and Emily is no exception. She loves her reflection, and with a reflection as sweet as hers, who wouldn't? It's so funny to watch her, because she'll stare very intently for a minute and then break out the smiles.

Shop Til You Drop!

We've taken Emily shopping a couple of times lately, and she just loves it. As long as she has a full tummy, she acts like a little angel. She really enjoys riding in her stroller and looking at all the people and lights, and eats up all the attention she gets! Most of the time, the excitement gets to be too much for her and she has to take a little nap. This was in Babies 'R Us after she'd had all she could take.

My, how things change...

I was in Atlanta for a meeting yesterday and was driving home last night, hating that I got stuck in traffic and knowing I would miss giving Emily her bath and good night kisses. I started thinking about how much has changed in the last 4 1/2 months of our lives...

The songs that I find myself singing during the day are no longer those from the radio, but instead are the tunes from Emily's toys or lullibies.

Dinnertime conversation is usually about dirty diapers or the latest smile or laugh that has us enamoured.

Everything in our day is planned around feeding time, nap time or bath time.

We used to get up before the sun in order to get to work and have an early start--now we try to stay in bed that extra few minutes and wonder just how late we can leave and still make it in on time.

All of my organizational skills have gone out the window.

Gracie and Bella are no longer number one--they have taken a back seat to their new little sister (they're still a close second, though).

I think the changes are definitely for the better, even though it might not always feel that way! When you have something this sweet to come home to, it's hard to doubt it :).