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 :).

Settling In

Emily seems to be really getting settled in the new house, which is amazing considering all the unpacking we have left to do! She has a ceiling fan to watch in almost every room (one of her favorite things), and a great backyard with lots of shade trees. She's also finding new places to get comfortable and take naps.

She's just growing so fast, and is doing new things all the time. She has now decided she's old enough to hold her own bottle!

Since she's not wearing the harness anymore, she can use the Bumbo and really seems to enjoy the different perspective--I think she was getting sick of lying down most of the time.

On a Roll!

I had to spend 3 days in Denver this week for work, and got home late Friday afternoon in need of some serious cuddle time with Emily. Luckily, she seemed to want the same thing, so we spent most of the afternoon together :). It's amazing how good it feels to hold her again after that long! I put her down on her tummy on a blanket in the floor so we could play a little, and she started working her arms and legs...before long, she rolled over onto her back! It was the first time she did it that it wasn't an accident--she really seemed to be working on it. Of course, when I got the video camera out, she wouldn't do it again. Still, it was nice to think she had saved her new trick for when I got home!

Moving Day

After a few crazy weeks, moving day arrived. We were a little nervous about the drive to Charlotte since Gracie, Bella and Emily have all been known to hate car trips. Gracie and Bella rode in the back seat of Mick's truck, and Emily took her usual spot in the carseat.

As you can see, it was a very traumatic trip for her--she slept for over 3 HOURS! We finally pulled over at a rest stop because it had been a long time since she had eaten, and we wanted to feed her before we met our landlords and picked up our keys.

Gracie and Bella needed to stretch their legs too, so Mick took them out and let them run around a little.

We got to Charlotte and met the landlords at 5:30 PM, picked up keys and unpacked the car and truck. We camped out in the living room floor, and the movers will be here in the morning to deliver our stuff!

Chaos

Wednesday through Friday of this week, we had movers in the house all day long packing up everything. Each day, we had fewer pieces of furniture until Friday we were left with the Pack 'n Play, a couple of air mattresses and one rocking chair! We had originally planned to camp out in our house until we drove to Charlotte on Sunday, but decided it just didn't make sense, and ended up getting a hotel room a few miles away. We were really glad we did, and Emily was as happy as she could be. She has such a sweet disposition and an easy going personality now (most of the time), and is a pleasure to take anywhere.

One Thing at a Time

We've had such a hectic few weeks lately, and yesterday we decided we needed to slow down a little. I was on my way home from the airport after having caught an earlier flight, excited that I'd be able to spend some time with Emily and accomplish some things tonight before bed. I was about 4 miles away from our house when the car in the lane beside me swerved into my lane and hit the side of my car. I wasn't hurt, but the car sure was. The police responded pretty quickly and issued the other driver a citation--it certainly could have turned out much worse than it did, but it just added one more thing for us to have to take care of now, which is more of a nuisance than anything.

When I got home, Mick and I talked and decided to hold off on changing everything in Emily's life right now until we get settled in Charlotte. We are letting her cry a little when we put her to bed at night--the last two nights, she'll cry for 10-15 minutes and then fall into a deep sleep. When she wakes up during the night though, we're still feeding her and putting her back to bed. We know we still have plenty of time to sleep train, and feel like it will be less traumatic if we aren't in the middle of moving.

Perfect Hips

Today will definitely go down as one of the best days in Emily's first four months. She had her hip ultrasound yesterday (the first one in five weeks, since she's been in the harness), but her follow up with the orthopedic specialist wasn't until today. I had to be in New Orleans for work, so Mick came home early to take Emily to her appointment. The doctor looked at her ultrasound and examined her hips, and said they're perfect and she no longer needs to wear the harness! We are absolutely ecstatic!

It's so nice to hold her now and let her get all snuggly and close, and it's even nicer to see her kick those perfect little legs around! She seems very excited, because her legs haven't stopped moving yet. She looks so much bigger because she can stretch all the way out--we feel like she's grown 6 inches overnight!

It probably sounds funny, but one of the other things I'm most looking forward to is changing her clothes more often--she could only wear a onesie with the harness on, and she has so many sweet little girly clothes that she has almost outgrown :).

4 Month Checkup

Emily had her 4-month checkup today with Dr. Bramwell, her pediatrician. She weighs 12 lbs, 7.4 oz now--what a growth spurt she's had! She's 23 1/2 inches long, and all of her measurements are in the 25th percentile now. So she's still on the small side for infants her age, but she's staying on track with her growth and developing perfectly.

Dr. Bramwell asked about the latest tricks Emily had mastered, so she showed all of them off--sitting up (with assistance), lifting up at almost a 90 degree angle while on her tummy, and trying to roll over. She told us we can start to introduce rice cereal any time now--I'm not sure Emily is quite ready, but we'll be trying it in the next couple of weeks, just to see what happens. She does watch more intently now as we eat, but seems to be perfectly content with just milk right now.

She also told us we shouldn't be using the Woombie any more at this point--that Emily needs to be able to get to her hands at night and doesn't need to be swaddled at 4 months. We're a little nervous about how sleeping will go without it, but we're willing to give it a try.

And speaking of sleeping, the doctor said it's time to start sleep training, and letting Emily "cry it out" some. She said she shouldn't be needing to eat in the middle of the night--Emily is still waking up pretty consistently to eat, and we've been feeding her since it puts her back to sleep much more easily than just the pacifier. Again, this makes us nervous, especially when you think about the fact that we've been working on making her stop crying for the last 16 weeks...and now we're expected to sit back and let her cry herself to sleep! This is gonna be tough.

Lots of changes to come, and I'm not sure we're prepared for all of them at once--what a week to be moving, on top of everything else!

Keeping Busy

If we could pick one word to describe Emily, it would probably be curious. She constantly keeps busy by checking out her surroundings, and seems to really enjoy sitting up so she can look around. The best positions for her in the harness are supposed to be on her back or on her tummy, but we've been thinking of getting something she could sit up in to give her a change of scenery. She sits up really well in the Bumbo seat, but can't stay in it with her harness on, so we bought her this little froggy jumper seat. She really enjoyed it, and we think she'll get a lot of use out of it as she gets a little older and more coordinated.

Emily is also getting a lot better with her hands, and she's really good at grabbing toys and taking them straight to her mouth! Mortimer the Moose was the first toy I bought for her before she was born, and she grabbed him today and chewed on his foot.

This teether was a gift from the baby shower, and she seems to like the taste of it now too!

16 Weeks Old

We can't believe our little Wiggles is 4 months old already! It has been the most eventful and rewarding 4 months of our lives. She'll visit the pediatrician on Monday and we can hardly wait to see how much she weighs. She's so much bigger and stronger, and seems to be doing new things every day. She'll also be going back for another hip ultrasound on Monday, so we'll find out on Tuesday how much longer she'll be in the harness.

We're planning a mini vacation at the beach with Uncle Jason, Aunt Jenn, Aunt Julie and (Uncle?) Albie in September, and we'll be staying in a condo with a kiddie pool and a lazy river--it will be Emily's first time really in the water, but we think she'll have a great time with her cousin Cody. We bought this sweet little bathing suit for her to wear on vacation, but just couldn't wait to try it on her--it's a 12 month size, so it's a little roomy, but they don't seem to make really small bathing suits for baby girls.