Five months already

Someone recently told me that the hours go by slowly, but the days pass quickly; that sounds right to me. I find myself longing for a button so I might freeze time and drink her smell, feel that soft skin, and listen to her baby sighs. Of course, there are times I want to fast forward through the bad nights!

What is M doing at five months?

Her gross motor skills are more developed that E's were at this age.* She is sitting pretty well. She flops after a while, but she can support herself well enough to sit by herself (I'm in hover mode, of course). She picks up items and passes them from hand to hand. Last night, she became enraged because I was pumping rather than nursing her (hey! she was the one off schedule!). While I was fumbling with my very sexy and very fancy hands-free-pumping-bra, she managed to get on her hands and knees and actually scooted backward.

She has just started eating a little cereal and fruit. I'm hoping that the addition of solids will keep her milk consumption stable so I don't have to pump more frequently.** So far we have completely rejected rice cereal, accepted oatmeal and happily (just this morning) accepted a wee bit of pears in the oatmeal.

She is still a good humored child. She smiles and giggles throughout much of the day. She babbles to herself. She shrieks in a way that makes me think she is copying her doting big sister.*** She flirts with strangers at the supermarket and grins at cashiers. She laughs at our dogs. She laughs at the birds that come to the feeder outside the kitchen window.

She is not sleeping through the night, and I haven't had the heart to let her cry it out for longer than 20 minutes. It is time, I think. She wakes because she has flipped to her tummy and is mad (yes, she can flip both ways, but she seems unwilling to do this at 3 a.m.), and she wakes and cries for her paci. I'm looking forward to the day she figures out how to get the paci back in her mouth. I will leave them scattered throughout her crib.

I hear her waking from her nap. Must run. The day is going quickly.

*I am guilty of comparing my children to each other and to other children.
**I kept up with her this week. No dipping into my frozen stash!
***Is shrieking in a high pitch hardwired for girls? Did I do this? Did it make my mother a little crazy?