Lenore at 5 Months

5 Months Old

aka The Month When Everything Goes in Her Mouth

Her stats (percentiles from BabyCenter):
Height: 26.5 inches (75th to 90th percentile)
Weight: Unknown (because I sent the scale to the storage unit--oops!)
Head Size: 17.25 inches (90th to 95th percentile)

This month went by so quickly! It seems like we were JUST at the doctor for her 4-month check-up. We've been really busy--the house is almost on the market (pictures were taken Friday, so we're just waiting for them to be edited and for the realtor to post them--should be just a matter of days!!!). I also have been busy helping with Lewis's big school fundraiser, which was Friday night--I volunteered on the committee and helped with the silent auction, so that's taken a bit of time the past week or two.

What she's doing this month:

• She is rolling over like a fool. As soon as you put her down on her back, she automatically flips to her belly. She now will flip both directions (left and right) and from back-to-belly and belly-to-back. She sleeps on her belly, happily now (thank goodness).
• She is slowly mobilizing!!! The past few weeks, she has started getting up on her knees with the little booty in the air, and she'll make either small scoots backwards or spin around. It's not significant movement, but it's movement! When I put her in her crib in, say, the lower right corner, I'll find her in the upper left corner (that is forward movement, I guess).
• She is napping in her crib now (unless we have errands--in that case, she falls asleep in her car seat and naps through Target or Kroger). :) We have fallen into a pretty good routine--she naps 3 times a day for 45 minutes to an hour. Occasionally, she will surprise me with a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, but that's only happened a few times. I'm trying to be better with her than I was with Lewis about putting her down awake so that she can learn to fall asleep on her own (vs. nursing her to sleep). She is getting so much better each day, fussing less and sleeping better. Occasionally I'll put her down and can just tell by her cry that it's not going to happen, so I'll feed her to help calm her down. 
• Speaking of feeding, nursing continues to go well (hallelujah!). At her 4-month appointment, the doctor said I can start introducing solids. I didn't start Lewis until 6 months, so I'm in no hurry. I did try rice cereal one day a few weeks ago, but it was a logistical nightmare for me--trying to pump fresh milk to mix with the cereal, while eating lunch with Lewis, while holding Lenore, was not ideal. :) She definitely watches us as we eat, which was one of the things the doctor said to watch for (she grabs for things and watches every bite as it goes from plate-to-mouth). At this point, I kind of feel like I'll get around to it, eventually. I've got the house stuff to worry about, so I'm kind of considering it as one less thing to have to do right now. Now that the fundraiser is over, I might focus more energy towards it--we'll see!
• Since the whole rolling over thing began, sleep regressed. She goes to sleep around 7:30pm, just like Lewis (Kevin puts Lewis to bed, and I put Lenore to bed). I was waking up 2 times a night most of this month (usually like 12:30am and 3:30am and 7ish for the day). Just the last few nights now, we've gone back to 1 time a night--around 2 or 3am, and then 6:45-7am.
• Just last night, she made it 7:30pm-5:30am! (And then slept until almost 9am.) I'm sure it was a fluke, but amazing, nevertheless. 
• She has very vocal days--she will just blab on and on, right in your face, like she has something really important to say. I always agree with her, whatever it is she is saying. :) I definitely don't remember Lewis 'talking' this much.
• She's still very drooly and loves to gnaw on our fingers, but she shows no sign of teeth just yet. She's been this way for at least a month because I remember her gnawing on the doctor's thumb at her 4-month appointment. For the drool,  I finally bought some waterproof bibs to wear so that her shirts stay somewhat dry.
• She is also semi-sucking her thumb/gnawing on it and/or her fingers. She is a slobbery mess, most of the time. :)
• She seems to love being outside, which I, of course, love. With the house prep stuff, there's been some yard work that needed to be done, so I've laid out a blanket in the grass for her, and she'll stay there pretty happily for 30-45 minutes. With her being a little bit mobile, though, I did catch her trying to put grass and/or leaves in her mouth a few times. :)
• She loves her brother! They continue to have more interactive time together, and they both seem to love it. Sometimes, she'll be in the Jumperoo, and he'll figure out ways to make her cackle. Sometimes he wants to hold her, and she ends up trying to eat his face or his hands (nothing says 'I love you' more than that). :)
• She loves Kevin, too. Her face just lights up when he gets home from work. :)
• She does sometimes have some fussy times between 4pm-bedtime, depending on how her afternoon nap goes. I've seen some improvement the past few weeks, but this was definitely a thing earlier this month. There were quite a few days of me cooking dinner with her in the Ergo because she wouldn't let me put her down, otherwise. Cooking dinner, fussy Lewis, barking dogs, etc. at the end of the day makes for some stressful situations for ol' Mama. It seems to be improving, though. 
• There was a day this week when her nap attempt was interrupted by the realtor coming over (and subsequently, barking dogs), so afterwards, I put her in the Ergo, and we mowed the yard together. She totally fell asleep about 10 minutes into it, and happily slept throughout the rest of the mowing. :)
• She is wearing some 6 month clothes, if they're separates. In one-pieces/sleepers, she is mostly wearing 9 months. Her 6 month sleepers are too snug, and some of her 6 month pants (depending on the brand and style), have been retired. Some of the pants' waistbands were super tight (damn you, impractical baby clothes' designers!!).

And some more pictures from this morning, just for fun:

 My sweet babies :)

 Lenore says, 'I will eat you, doggie!'

 Both kids, watching our doggies being escorted from the room (it was an exciting morning of picture-taking, let me tell you). :)

 

 

 Why not stand for a bit?

 And not sit still for longer than 5 seconds...

:)

Lenore at 4 Months

4 Months Old

Her stats (from the doctor's office, percentiles from BabyCenter): 
Weight: 17 pounds, 1.8 ounces (between 90th and 95th percentile)
Height: 24.88 inches (between 5oth and 75th percentile)
Head Size: 17 inches (between 90th and 95th percentile)

So she's not growing in length as much, but still packing on the pounds. :) Her appointment went well--the doctor said that she thinks the heart murmur sounds softer than when she first detected it (I'm not sure how she can remember such a thing--maybe there's a scale that she uses?). We go back to the cardiologist around 6 months for another echo to see for sure, so hopefully we do see improvement then. She had one oral vaccine and two injected ones.

What she's doing this month:

• She's rolling over, both from belly to back and back to belly. She will only go one direction from back to belly (over her right side), so that's helpful for knowing where to lay her down (knowing where to give her some extra room to land). She started doing this at around 3 1/2 months. I don't have a specific date, and I don't have video (poor Lenore). :) She really gotten the hang of it this past week, I know that.
• Sleep is slowly improving. She's had a couple of nights lately where she's only woken up around 2am and 5:30am. I'll put her back down after the 5:30 feeding, and she'll sleep anywhere from 6 to 8am. I've been staying up, so it feels like she only woke up once. She's still had some 1am/4:30am wake-ups, so I won't toot my horn/her horn just yet.
• Since I wrote this a few days ago, just as we were maybe seeing improvement in sleep, she has entered the 'HELP, I've rolled over and don't know what to do!!' phase. Also, the 'OMG, my arm is stuck between the crib slats!!' phase.
• She's settled into a pretty good routine of eat-play-sleep. She's been staying awake for about 2 hours at a time, followed by a 45 minutes to an hour long nap. I think that adds up to 3-4 naps a day, depending on what time she wakes up for the day. If we're out running errands, she might fall asleep for longer in her car seat. One day last week, she slept for 3 1/2 hours (after a normal morning and shortened mid-day nap)!
• Breastfeeding is finally going well. As it should be, finally. I do still have some Raynaud's pain sometimes, but it's nothing compared to what it used to be. She's still not taking bottles 'well,' but she has taken a few. Kevin's parents watched her last weekend while we took Lewis to Chuggington Live (for his birthday gift), and Lenore didn't really drink much from the first two bottles, but she took the third one pretty well, Sharon said. She did better yesterday with a bottle for Sharon, too. She did so-so for Kevin this morning. She's very active with  her hands and pushes the bottle away a lot, so Kevin has had some luck swaddling her while feeding. Still a work in progress.
• I might be biased, but she is just such a sweet baby. She smiles and giggles and just warms my heart, most of the day. She does have her moments, especially if she's hungry, but she's generally very sweet.
• She doesn't have any teeth, but she sure likes to gnaw on things as if she is teething. Blankets, thumbs, etc. And she slobbers so much and blows raspberries. I can't imagine what it will be like when she actually is teething.
• She's wearing 6 month clothes.