Avery and Angie

I love this video!!!

Avery making her move

Still trying to figure out how to link my youtube videos to the blog.

Avery’s now five months old and making leaps and bounds on her development.

She is sleeping through the night most nights. We put her to bed about 11pm and she doesn’t get up until 9:30 except for the occasional feeding at 6am. That is 10 hours of straight sleeping! I know I am a lucky mama.When she does wake up she is so happy and talkative. She lays there in her crib talking to herself while scratching and looking at the flowers on her bedding. I love going into her room and seeing her give me the biggest smile. I get jealous when Chris gets her up because I miss that morning smile. We both go in her room so we can experience the blissful baby together. Ridiculous I know but we are proud new parents.

She still doesn’t have a consistent nap schedule during the day but is getting better and better. The other day she took two, two hour naps and then slept through the night again. Mama was so proud of her and welcomed the sleep. I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, when it comes to nighttime and naps. However, she wont go to sleep unless she is nursing or has a bottle. We really need to wean her from this habit.

When Avery is awake she is so alert and talkative. I love seeing her personality emerge. We play games now and she is so curious. Her new game is reaching out with her hands so I can pretend to eat them. Today she started sucking on her bottom lip. I think she is trying to imitate me when I put my lips together like forming the M sound and make a popping noise. Or maybe she is trying to say "mama"?She holds her toys and inspects them as well as her hands.

She doesn't really like her binky unless she is sleeping and she quit sucking her thumb. Her new thing is eating the wrong end of her binky. I think she likes the way it feels on her gums. She is grabbing at Maggie and sticks her hands in her face so she will lick her hands. She is not to sure about the face licking yet and neither am I.

Now lets talk about Maggie. She is still extremely jealous. Whenever we are playing with the baby she has to get in between us; it is getting a little annoying. She hasn’t quite figured out that you can’t walk on the babies face either. I found a puppet that looks just like Maggie. Avery LOVES it. I busted out the puppy puppet at church last week and had to take Avery out becasue she was yelling at the dog. I couldn't stop laughing. BTW 1pm church is not very nice to a 5 month old, she really struggles after 2pm.

I'm getting excited for her to crawl or walk but am glad she can't yet because I can leave her someplace and be reasonably sure she’ll still be near there when I get back. Although, she doesn’t like to be alone very often. She does really well in her bumbo chair for few minutes anyway (always under supervision of course). The good and bad thing about the bumbo is that it makes her poop everytime she is in it. If she hasn’t pooped in a few days we put her in the chair to help get things going and it has worked every time so far. She rolls over every once in a while but isn’t real consistent. I think she will start walking before she really crawls. she loves to stand (with my help of course).

Food right now is simple. Breastmilk or formula, maybe some cereal. I'm still breastfeeding, yeah for me! I never thought I would last this long especially after I went back to work. I keep wanting to move on and introduce all the new foods but then realize that these are the days before pickiness, when an infant is happy to belly up to the same meal, day after day. We're taking our time introducing new foods. I know before long she'll be deciding she only wants cheese or chicken nuggets for days on end.

Avery and I have conversations every day, and I think I'm getting pretty good at speaking and translating 5-month-old infant talk. Our conversations are a hilarious! Here's a pretty typical conversation of ours:

Avery: "Gooo, ahhh-ga-ga Ha Ha." (Translation: "Wow, Mama, I slept sooo good last night. I had a dream that all I did was eat milk and play with you and be held all day long. Wow have you seen these cool things at the tips of my hands? They have little projections that let me grab things! And they taste pretty neat, too.")

Mama: "Oh, gaah-gaaah, goo goo. (Translation: "baby girl that wasn't a dream. I have all the milk you need sweet heart and I will hold you until my back hurts, oh wait it already does. I have cool things on my hands too! Those are called fingers! Mama loves those sweet little fingers. I think I'll have to kiss them!")

Avery: [Squeal!] [Giggle Giggle!] Aaaaaahhhh, heeeaahh gooo. (Translation: "Look, Mama, I can pull your hair and squeeze your nose! You're more fun to grab than any of my other toys. Do you play music or light up when I pull on you?").

Then I happily oblige by singing any one of a million silly songs or play my ipod and dance with my little angel. You get the idea. These conversations can go on for quite some time, and as you can see, we discuss some very important stuff.