Five Months

Dearest Leah,

I don’t know which I love more, your big gummy smiles when you first wake up or your exuberant belly laughs when I nibble at your tiny toes. Both just about send me over the edge. Sometimes you laugh at a song or a silly face, and sometimes it’s just a big sigh from me that does the trick. Either way kiddo, keep up the great work, cause when you laugh and smile at me NOTHING. ELSE. MATTERS.

Recently you’ve started to get so much stronger, especially at holding up your head.  I love sitting you up and watching you look around as though it’s a completely different world in this position. I got you one of those jumperoo thingies and can’t wait to see you go to town in it.  At the moment you could pretty much careless, but I know you’ll come around…

You have really started to figure out where your mouth is, and you certainly don’t hesitate putting just about everything in it. But it’s mostly your hands or your shirt. And your thumb! You discovered your thumb! Super cute, but I suddenly feel like I should start putting away for future orthodontist appointments. It’s amazing to see you start to understand that your hands and toys can be chewed on, even though when you try to get a toy in your mouth you mostly hit yourself in the face, but the point is; you get it! So cool.

Since we moved you to your crib full time a few weeks ago you’ve been sleeping a lot better. It makes me sad not to have you right next to me in your bassinet, but I’m happy that you’re comfy in your crib. You’ve even slept through the night a handful of times, even though I never do. I’ll wake up at 3:30 expecting you to get up “any minute now” and then toss and turn until my alarm goes off, or you eventually wake up a few hours later. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to your longer stints. I’ve monitored naps and even tried inducing a milk coma, but it just seems like you do it when you need it. And that works for me.  All in all I can’t complain about your sleep habits these days, and I almost feel bad telling the blogosphere that I had nothing to do with your new ability to sleep at least six hours straight. I put you down between 7-8pm depending on your cues, and then you typically don’t get up until 2:30 or 3:00am. The only problem I have though is the fact that I don’t go to bed until 10:30 or 11, so I don’t get as much sleep as I could. BAD momma!

The time since you’ve been born has gone by obscenely fast, but for some reason this past month in particular has flown by. While I love seeing you make all of this progress in the physical and cognitive aspects, it makes me a little sad that you are moving more and more away from the infant stage. Still its impossible not to look forward to seeing who you'll become.

Can't wait to see what next month brings.

Love, Momma