5 Months!

At the time that I am writing this, Greta has recently turned 5 months old. I vacillate back and forth everyday – thinking she’s such a little baby one moment and thinking she looks like a toddler the next. Sometimes she just seems so grown up and other times it feels like nothing is really different. 

As far as specific milestones, not much is different. As I posted earlier, she rolled over for the first time a few weeks ago. But she hasn’t done it since then, so it appears to have been a bit of a fluke. For the most part, her development has seemed to be just a matter of MORE, for lack of a better word. She is more active, more demanding of our attention, more needy when it comes to naps (she doesn’t just sleep anywhere anymore). She’s also more coordinated and more purposeful with her movements – she reaches and grabs for things that she wants, she turns her head to look at computers, phones, TV’s (uh oh). She takes her pacifier out of her mouth and passes it from hand to hand, turning it over and looking at it from all angles.

Her growing interest in being able to interact with people and things more has prompted us to buy a "Go Pod." It's basically a collapsible exersaucer -- without the saucer part, the swivel part or the attached toys...okay, so maybe it's not an exersaucer at all, but just the baby version of a camp chair. Why don't I just show a picture of it? 

Her first experience in a Go Pod -- when we tried it out in a store (the one we actually bought was found via Craigslist).

She also has had a couple bouts of what appears to be teething pain. It will last for an entire day – generalized crankiness, crying, gnawing on her fists, etc. And then the next day it will appear to be gone. I suppose I should be glad that it is short-lived, but since we haven’t seen any actual teeth, we have no idea how long this is going to go on or how it will change as she gets closer to actual teeth. Greta isn’t much of a crier, so it’s particularly stressful when she’s upset.

She’s also been biting me while nursing. Just in these last few days. I could swear she has teeth in there, but when I look, there’s nothing. I’m not even sure if I can describe it as biting. It’s not like a distinct chomp. But she’ll just be nursing as normal and then all of a sudden the shape of her mouth will change and I will feel a horrible, sharp pain and have to pull her off. It feels like the early days of breastfeeding again. Part of me wonders whether her latch is just suddenly getting awful, but it doesn’t seem like that makes sense. I think she’s just experimenting with her mouth (she often makes chewing faces when she watches us while eating) and doesn’t realize that she can’t do that while she’s nursing.

Speaking of her chewing faces while she watches us eat, she has been taking a more active interest in food. She will lean forward and move her jaw in our direction while she watches us. She will follow our food with her eyes, as it moves from plate to mouth. She will reach out to touch food items – like today when she was sitting on my lap, she wanted to hold my glass.

Casey asked me recently whether Greta explores the world by putting things in her mouth. It’s strange, but in a way I kinda don’t think so. Which is strange for a baby, I know. It’s not that she doesn’t put things in her mouth, it’s just not her first instinct. She will usually spend a great deal of time looking at something and touching it first. Then, she will often put it in her mouth, but I guess I interpret it more as a “Hmmm . . . After examining this for a bit, I have decided that it would feel good against my gums. Mayhaps I should try it?” kind of reaction, rather than a, “Hmmmm . . . This is something I’ve never encountered before, what’s it all about? Let’s put it in my mouth and find out!” kind of initial reaction.

"I seem to detect notes of silicone, and just a hint of velour."

Maybe I’m reading way too much into my baby’s motives.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that it is an interesting thing to note, as I’m not sure how she’ll react to food next month (wow! That’s soon!) when she turns 6 months old. I had always kinda figured that babies are so used to putting things in their mouth that it would be an obvious choice to make if they were presented with a piece of avocado or banana. But what if she just kinda touches it and doesn’t try to put it in her mouth? How will she figure it out?

I guess I shouldn’t be too worried about it, since she sucks on her hands like crazy. I guess even if she didn’t put the avocado in her mouth immediately, she’d touch it and examine it and then eventually put her hand in her mouth and I guess that’s when she’d discover the deliciousness and (hopefully), get the whole point of this food stuff. Or maybe putting toys in one’s mouth has nothing to do with learning to eat. Maybe it’s a specific learned behavior that she will naturally do, after having watched us put food in our mouths countless times over the course of her life. 

In other news, we found a great deal on a toddler chair at a resale shop. We'd been looking for one ever since we borrowed Walt's when we were in Steven's Point and used it to give Greta her meds.  Much easier than trying to wrangle her into deep corner of the adult-sized couch. She'd been taking her meds like a champ for the last few months, but she's particularly breezy with them while sitting in the chair. The most trouble she gives us is with distraction (turning her head to look at something just as the meds are getting close to her mouth), but most of the time, she knows to open her mouth wide and the whole routine is over very quickly. 

Just lounging. 

In other "Likes and Dislikes," Greta has discovered an admiration for Ben's hair. It's awesome to see her baby belly laughs when Ben tickles her with it, and she also loves reaching out and touching it, running her fingers through it and putting her face in it. 

She thinks this is the best ever. 

Sometimes we question her motives when she offers to perform a lice inspection. 

She likes my hair too and will reach out to grab it or run her fingers over it, but it doesn't offer her quite the same levels of pleasure as Ben's hair. 

Speaking of hair, she's getting quite the little tuft of her own. It's super cute because there's a part of it that sticks up like some kind of adorable Dr. Seuss character. It's hard to capture on film because it's so light in color,  but this was the best I could do. 

Overall, she's just a happy baby!