Five Months (and Four Months too)

So I've been a bit of a slacker. Annika turned five months a couple of weeks ago. Oh, and she turned four months a month before that. On her five-month birthday she turned into a banana and went to my school's Monster Mash:

And here she is at four months:

It is amazing how much she has changed since the three-month-mark, but it's also bittersweet, since she's growing and developing so rapidly. There have been changes in our family, too -- since kids came back to school in September, I've been really busy and definitely have been feeling the working mom guilt. Sometimes I feel that I'm not doing the principal thing or the mom thing very well. Both Scott and I have days where we try so hard and do so much and it still feels like it's not enough. I am SO relieved that we found a good babysitter for Annika. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if she didn't have such a loving caregiver. 


During Annika's four month checkup we found out that she hadn't gained nearly enough weight -- only 7 ounces in nearly two months! I think her small size made it easier for her to move, because she became proficient at rolling forward, back, and over and over. This caused problems in September, when she learned how to roll to her tummy while sleeping, but would get her arms crossed and couldn't figure out how to roll back. She would wake up multiple times per night, leading to many nights like this:

To our relief, since then she's figured out how to sleep on her stomach.

 

She now wriggles around her crib like crazy. She kicks her feet and arches her back to get out of her bouncy chair or carseat when she doesn't feel like sitting. She loves to try to sit up when she's on my lap or in the bath. She's also reaching and grasping, and even figured out how to pet the dog. She loves her toys, but is equally happy to just observe the world around her. I love how much she's learning, but hate that time only goes one direction...

Sometimes she plays until she is worn out.

She especially enjoys looking at lights, including the television. 

Good thing we're not big cartoon watchers.

For the past month, we've engaged in operation fatten-up-baby. We discovered a milk protein allergy and also found out that she'll eat a lot more food than we originally thought, so we had to make some changes. I'm glad to say it's been a success -- at five months, she weighed almost two pounds more! She's now closing in on 13 pounds. 


The best change over the past two months is her emerging personality. Unlike the first three months, when we focused on meeting her basic needs (food, diaper, sleep) to keep her from being upset, she now is generally entertaining and easily entertained. She laughs when she's tickled, when she's thrown in the air, when she's playing hand games, and sometimes just when people around her laugh. She also LOVES the baby in the mirror, and gets a kick out of punching the mirror. Here's what happened when we went shopping in early October: