5 months

Happy 5 months Miss Emily!  Where has the time gone?

-Sleep training took longer than I was hoping it would, but I'm happy to report that Emily is now a great sleeper!  She's not sleeping through the night yet, but she's only up once each night and I'm happy with that.  She now goes to sleep almost every night without crying at all, and when she does cry it's not for long.  Naps were harder.  She fought them for a long time, and she still doesn't respond well to scheduled naps, but for the past few days she's gone down for most naps without crying.  She now associates her crib with sleep and it's hard for her to fall asleep anywhere else.  It's a little bit bittersweet to me.  On the one hand, I'm super glad that she goes to sleep well in her bed.  On the other hand, I feel like she doesn't need me as much anymore.  I used to be able to put her straight to sleep if I held her the right way or rocked her.  The other day she was tired and crying.  She cried when I picked her up and all the way to her room until the second I put her down.  Then she was fine.  It broke my heart a little bit, but I know it's good for her and it makes my life a little easier.
-Emily's getting a lot more coordinated.  She works really well with her hands.  When you put a toy in front of her she grabs it immediately and she always seems so focused trying to figure out different things she can do with it.  Sometimes she'll take her pacifier out of her mouth, examine it, then put it back in and she does it over and over again. She can also move around a lot.  When we first started sleep training and she was crying in bed a little bit, I would put her down facing one way and when I went to check on her she'd be completely turned around.  Now that she can roll over both ways, she can get more comfortable when she's sleeping.  She prefers to sleep on her right side.  She usually turns onto her side as soon as I put her down.  One night, she was crying and when I checked on her she was wedged against the side of the crib so she couldn't turn over.  I moved her to the middle and she immediately turned onto her side and went straight to sleep.

-She loves experimenting with her voice and learning how to make new noises.  As soon as she figures out something new she can do she thinks it's really cool and she'll do it over and over again all day long.  It's so funny!  Here are a couple of her new noises.  She's done several more, but anytime I get the camera out, she stops performing so this is all I caught on tape.

-She had solids for the first time last week.  She's been really interested in watching us eat our food. Whenever we put her baby spoon in front of her, she'll pick it up and put it straight in her mouth.  One morning I was eating cereal and I put her spoon in front of her.  She watched me eat and when I picked up my spoon, she picked up hers.  Then I put mine in my mouth and she did the same with hers!  When we first gave her rice cereal she was so excited about it!  She didn't reject the spoon, but she didn't completely know what to do with it and she made a mess, so we decided to wait a little bit and try again another time.

-Emily can sit up for a little bit unassisted.  When she first started doing it, she had to be leaning pretty far forward with her hands on the ground or her legs.  Now she can sit up a little straighter and she doesn't need her hand support anymore.  She can only do it for a short period of time though.  I have to stay right by her so she doesn't start to lean and fall over.
-She seems to pretty much be over her stranger phase.  She'll let most people hold her and she's very social.  She'll still start to get upset if someone else has her for a long time, but for the most part she's ok.

 We just can't get enough of our cute little girl!

Here are some outtakes from today's shoot (and cute ones that didn't get to be the main photo):