Well another month has passed here in the Banes household, and Emma is growing and changing SO fast. Whenever I sit down to write one of these posts, I find myself going back and looking at all the old pictures and videos. I am amazed by how different she is in just 5 months, and sometimes I find myself a little sad that these stages don't last a little longer. But since I have not managed to harness the 1.21 gigawatts it apparently takes to travel through time, I must be content to live in the moment.
So, here's our five things about being five months old:
 |
| Lizzy gives good kisses! |
- Lizzy is Emma's best friend: Whether she knows it or not, Lizzy is Emma's favorite toy/activity/friend, and for her part, Lizzy is pretty accommodating with what she lets Emma get away with when they interact. Once Emma learns to crawl though, poor Lizzy is never going to get a moment's rest. One of our favorite "games" to play is "Where's Lizzy?" All you have to do is ask Emma this question and her eyes immediately go looking for her puppy, and she usually laughs or gets all excited when she finds her. If Lizzy's within an arm's reach, then Emma starts holding her hands out to touch her, and usually Lizzy responds with puppy kisses. It's an especially useful game for when Emma is fussy because it distracts her in an instant. On the flip side, if you ask Emma "Where's mommy?" or "Where's daddy?," she does nothing. I guess we need to work on that some.
Video: Emma, Kevin, and Lizzy playing "chase"
 |
| Time to rise and shine! |
- Sleep is a beautiful thing: In case you haven't noticed, a lot of our pictures of Emma involve her sleeping. That happens for two reasons: (1) she's just so stinking cute when she's asleep and (2) she's a really good sleeper most of the time. She is definitely like her parents in this regard - we love our sleep time. So when we moved Emma upstairs to sleep in her crib, it was a transition for us all. First, we couldn't see or hear her as well any more, which meant that Kevin and I spent our nights only half sleeping and just listening for any rustle or whimper. So to combat our sleeplessness, we went out and bought a video monitor. Now, it eases our minds that we can peek in on her, if needed, and honestly, we rarely have to wake up to do so. Since she's learned to roll, we've discovered that Emma likes to sleep on her side. It's funny to see how much she actually rolls around and moves during the night because she's never in the position you left her unless she's sleeping super hard. Emma sleeps an average of 10 hours a night - and sometimes all in one session. Mostly though she sleeps for 6-8 hours, wakes up to eat, and then sleeps another 2-4 hours. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty nice. I think Kevin's jealous that we sleep in most days, but I guess that there's got to be some perks to be the parent who gets covered in slobber and changes diapers all day long. Of course, nap time is another story. We get about 3-4 in a day, but they're all usually pretty short. It's like she knows when 30 minutes are up, and she's ready to play again. Right now, we just let her nap wherever is most convenient - in her room, in our downstairs portable crib, in her Boppy, chair, or swing. Or my favorite, in my arms!
 |
Desperate times call
for desperate measures |
Now since sleep is such a precious commodity, when we have nights that don't go as planned it hits all of us pretty hard. Teething and gas seem to be our biggest culprits when it comes to interrupting a peaceful night's sleep. Unfortunately, when Kevin was out of town a few weeks ago, Emma hit me with a double whammy of teething and gas fussiness. She was up every 1.5 to 2 hours crying. Let me tell you - doing the stairs got old fast. So, I moved her downstairs, but the problem still persisted, and she only really calmed down when being held. Finally about 5 AM, desperation set in. Emma was tired, I was tired, and Lizzy was annoyed that we were both interrupting her sleep time. So in an effort to appease all parties involved, I came up with the idea of putting the changing pad in bed with me and letting Emma sleep there, so that I could keep a comforting hand on her and know that she wouldn't be rolling around in the bed or suffocating under the covers. Thankfully, it worked!
 |
| Emma doing her baby Pilates |
- A girl's got to move: Well, we've successfully survived a month of having a baby who can roll over. She still hasn't figured out how to go from tummy to back, but at least she's stopped crying about having to spend time on her tummy once she does roll over. She actually spends about three quarters of her play time on her tummy. Now though, it seems like she's taking a baby Pilates class. When she's on her back, Emma will lift her head and feet at the same time like she's trying to figure out how to sit up. She's definitely going to have some strong core muscles. When Emma's on her tummy, she's gotten to the point where she can extend her arms all the way to hold herself up. It looks like she's doing mini-baby push ups because she goes up and down and up and down. The other thing Emma has taken to is scooting. Only, she does it backwards! And very efficiently too! I'll leave Emma on the blanket playing on her back to run to the restroom, and when I come back she's rolled over and 2 feet from where I left her! It's funny to watch though because sometimes she scoots herself into situations she can't get out of - like running out of room cause she got to the wall or the bar on the play gym.
 |
| Playing in her exersaucer |
We've started working on coordinating her leg strength too. She's a pretty powerful kicker. Any time she finds something funny or entertaining, she kicks those legs in happiness. Needless to say, Kevin's getting pretty wet during bath time because those legs go non-stop! To help burn off some of that leg energy, we got out the exersaucer (which is HUGE), and she loves to move and groove in it. If you watch her feet, she likes to move up and down on her tippy toes a lot. The one point of contention in our household is teaching her how to sit up, mainly because she'd rather stand, and she's pretty adamant about it. When you take Emma's hands and help her sit up, she insists on keeping her legs locked straight and won't bend in the middle. So it's easier to let her stand all the way up, and then get her to sit. She still flops over after a few seconds, but she's getting better at it little by little. After all this exercise, she's pretty tuckered out by the end of the day, and sometimes, she just admits defeat by laying face down on the floor.
 |
| This is the look of tired defeat |
 |
| Practicing! |
- Learning to eat food is an adventure: We got the go ahead at 4 months to start solids with Emma, but at the time we were still having trouble with finding a formula that didn't tie Emma's system up in knots. While she's still mostly nursing, we like having the option to use formula when needed. Anyways, we found one, and once Kevin was home from traveling to Corpus Christi, we figured we'd give this food thing a go. We started off by just letting Emma practice sitting in the high chair. Since she isn't too much of a fan of sitting, we thought we might need to start there. She did really well in it, and I think she liked getting to look at things at new perspective/height. So after a few "dry" runs, we worked up the courage to add food to the equation.
 |
| What? Is there something on my face? |
Now, if you've never attempted trying to feed a baby yourself - it's quite messy, comical, frustrating, and did I mention, messy! I mean, how do you tell an infant to open and close her mouth? Or to swallow the pretty much tasteless, weirdly textured mush? (Side note: if you blow on an infant's face, it triggers the swallow reflex). But I can see why so many parents open and shut their own mouths while feeding the baby. You involuntarily mimic the behavior you want to see happen. I have to say Emma did pretty well, even though I think Kevin and I made the cereal a little too thin and it was more like slurping than swallowing. Since then, I think we've all gotten the hang of things a little bit better, and now she opens her mouth when the spoon is coming. We've still got some work to do on learning to close our mouth though. Next, we'll move on to oatmeal and then some fruits and veggies!
Video: Emma's first bites
 |
| I'm all smiles! |
- An expressive explosion: Emma's got two modes: pensive observer and expressive munchkin. For the past 4 months, she mainly just been content to watch quietly all the stuff that's been going on around her. Even when playing with her toys, she seemed caught up in her own little world, cooing occasionally. Well, that's not her dominant mode anymore. Now, she likes to make noise, shout, and share everything. Her range of expressions is priceless. I wish I had a pair of those Google glasses, so I could snap pictures from my point of view in an instant. How she reacts to things cracks me up. I would love to know what she's thinking, but for now, I just have settle with coming up with my own inner monologue of what's going on in her head. She's also found a new range of noises and sounds, including growling like a gremlin, fake coughs after real ones, belly laughs, and yelling just cause she can. When she wakes up in her crib, she spends the first 15-20 minutes just rolling around and making noises (mostly raspberries and growls) until she cries that she's ready to get up for the day. Of course, we still have our thoughtful moments, but now she's just more apt to share how she's feeling afterwards. Here are some of our favorite expressions!
