5 Months and 6 Months

OH, BROTHER!! **That's for you, Bridge!!** Keeping up with this blog has been so challenging lately. I'm too busy enjoying life! God has been doing great things, and I really, really am enjoying life. But, I'm so very, very busy!

Part of what keeps me SOOOOOOOOOO busy is this very, very active 6 month old!!!


I'm planning to make Elizabeth a first year book from my monthly blog reports, so I'm going to do my best to remember all that has happened since my last Elizabeth update.

So here goes:

Sweet, Fun-Loving Elizabeth, this is what you've been up to...

Your 5 month birthday fell on Valentine's Day. It was a jammed pack day!! Here's a picture of you on that day. It was your first time in a baby swing, and you LOVED it!!


Right about the time that you turned 5 months old, you began rolling in both directions with ease. In the past month, you've perfected this and now you roll with purpose and intention!! Just this week, you left the blanket I had you on in the floor and rolled all the way from the sofa to the rocking chair to get to me! TOO CUTE!!

Also around 5 months you began really playing with your toys. You love bright colored toys that crinkle, squeak, or rattle. You also LOVE toys that light up or play music! You get so excited and kick and smile when you we offer you a toy. You also LOVE paper! You just go wild trying to get your little hands on some paper. If you ever succeed, you instantly put it in your mouth and turn it into a slobbery, wet mess! As much as you enjoy these fun things, there's something you enjoy more...you LOVE to be talked to and played with. Nothing makes you smile or laugh bigger than a silly face from either me, Daddy, Luke, Grace, Mary Ruth, or Bella Peace. You are extremely social and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE for people to notice you!




You laugh out loud all the time now.

Fortunately, you've remained very healthy in spite of the fact that the rest of us have passed viruses and other crud around.

You really bonded with grandmother recently when just me and you traveled to see her and to attend a baby shower.

You don't travel as easy as your siblings did as babies. You prefer to be at home and are always the happiest when we are home and follow a structured routine. Sunday's are always hard days for you. We are away from home almost all day for church activities, and you don't do as well on those kind of days.

I haven't mentioned this in your earlier monthly reports, but until very recently, you always put up a fuss over getting buckled into your car seat. I think that you have started to accept this, and you are not fussing about it as much or as often.

As of just this week, you are starting to need size 3 diapers. We plan to finish our the size 2's that we have and move up to the next size. You have still been wearing 3-6 months clothes, but I'm planning up unpack your 6-9 month stuff this weekend. You are still little bitty, but you are long and skinny so you need to move up to the next size for the length. It works out really good though, because the weather is really starting to warm up and you need a different season of clothing also! I can't wait you dress you up in cute spring/summer dresses! I also can't wait to see your bare feet all the time!!

Speaking of bare feet, you discovered these a couple of days before turning 5 months old. You became obsessed with sucking your toes (especially your big toe) which made for quite an adventure when we changed your diaper or dressed you.




The biggest changes for you recently have been with your sleeping and eating routines. I reported in your 4 month update that you were not sleeping very well. That got a lot worse before it got better. By 5 months you were waking up all the through the night. Since you share a room with siblings, Daddy and I would just let you come to bed with us so we would not disturb anyone. We've always been pretty against this in the past, but because of the share room we felt like we didn't have a lot of options. Well apparently, you got spoiled to this really quick! It went from you waking up and coming to our room early in the morning to you waking up 5 minutes after we laid you down. It got to where you were not sleeping well unless someone was sleeping with you, and you woke up to nurse all night long. I knew that we had to deal with this and nip it quick!! So I waged war around 5 months and after 4 almost completely sleepless nights that included you crying and screaming practically all night long, the victory was mine!! OH, BOY it was a hard few days!! I should add that I decided to pick this battle while visiting one of my BFF in Kentucky. I had my reasons for choosing to make war in on foreign soil, but I will save that for my Kentucky post! I do believe that we created a lot of the sleep problems by letting you sleep with us, but I also believe there was more to the story. That brings me to the changes in your feeding routines...

So the 5 month mark was just a big turning point for you. You were becoming way more active, more interactive, more social, meeting new milestones all the time, but you were not sleeping well during the day or night, and you were also fussy more often. I soon realized that it was probably time to go ahead and start you on solids. You were showing all the readiness signs. SO, we made you a very, very happy girl by adding single grain rice cereal to your diet on February 25 just a couple days shy of 5 1/2 months old. You LOVE it!! You were so eager and excited!! You knew exactly what to do and had no trouble at all learning to take the food from a spoon, move it to the back of your mouth, and swallow it down. We quickly advanced adding green beans, sweet peas, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears, and bananas to your menu. You now join us in 3 meals a day. I still nurse you before, after, and in between all these meals. You've also had a celery stick to gnaw on for fun and as a teether, and just yesterday you enjoyed your first strawberries served in a fresh food feeder. YUMMY!!! You are a very, very good eater!!

Here you are enjoying your very first bowl of cereal!



And here you are with your celery


I really believe that all the sleeping problems that we were having both during the day and the night were in part due to the fact that you were hungry and were needing something with a little more substance. My milk supply has always been a very delicate balance, and I believe we had reached a point where you were needing something more. So between breaking you of your habit of sleeping with us and getting your belly full, you are now sleeping beautifully once again! We now put you to bed at around 8:00 PM and you wake around 7:00 AM. You occasionally wake up once in the middle of the night, but I get up, nurse you in your room, and put you right back down.

OH, that's another change that I'm LOVING!! We've re-arranged furniture to move our rocker back into your shared room. It's so peaceful, calm, beautiful thing to be able to nurse you in your room rather than in the living room where all the action is always happening. I LOVE nursing you in peace and quiet. I feel like I get to appreciate my time with you. It's always a reflective time. A prayerful time. You've not had your own nursery, but I really enjoyed "borrowing" Jonas' nursery when we where in Kentucky and I was inspired to at least move the rocking chair back into your room where it should be.

Another first this past month was the introduction of your first bottle. I offered you your first bottle on one of those desperate sleepless nights when you and I were battling over whether or not you would sleep at night. You would have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. Back home several days later, you were still seeming so hungry after I nursed you so we offered you a bottle a couple more times. You were still not interested. Finally one night, I left you with Daddy for a couple of hours at night. I told him that I expected to be back in time for your final nursing, but it he needed to offer you a bottle that he could go ahead and give it a try. That night, you took your first bottle. Daddy was so pleased!! He LOVED getting to rock you and watch you fall asleep in his arms while drinking your bottle. You only drank about 2 ounces, but you seemed to enjoy it and then drifted off to sleep. Since then we've given you a couple other bottles at bedtime when it seemed like maybe you could still be hungry. I was really afraid that maybe nursing was coming to an end. I don't feel that way now, but I guess we are officially supplementing at least on occasion. I don't mind though, because it gives us a lot of options. And, I'm still getting to nurse you all day, every day which is such an honor and privilege!!

The final first for this post is that you apparently unintentionally said, "MaMa" twice on March 5th. You did it twice very loudly while "talking" to me and grandmother after your bath, but you've not done it since. Daddy doesn't believe that you ever did it, but I know you did! And I've got a witness!!

OH one other thing that I almost forgot, Lizzy, you hair has just now finally started to lay down every where but right on the top back. Your hair was still pretty crazy in these pictures taken March 28th. So adorable!!



Elizabeth, you are such a joy, such a delight!!! You are at such a fun age. You really are like our little sunshine, lighting up all of our days! Your brother and sisters are often arguing over who should hold or play with you next! You are SO loved!! We feel so blessed to have you in our family!!

I'll end with a couple other favorite pictures from the past couple of months.



My attempt at a 6 month picture. All you wanted to do was eat the paper!! Finally I called in one of my helpers for back-up!!