Five Months!

Tomorrow Alaina turns five months old. Five months! All at once it seems like time is flying by and creeping. That could be due to the crazy amount of stuff we need to do every day to keep up with all of our commitments, and it most definitely has something to do with lack of sleep and the fact that at least one of us is now sick at all times. Since Alaina started daycare she’s had a stuffy nose, pink eye, a cough, a few days with a fever, and who knows what else. I’ve been sick twice, and Philip has been sick at least once. We used to be so healthy in our house. Now that we have a baby in daycare, friends assure us that it’s normal for all of us to be sick for most of the first year. YEAR?!?! Ugh. I don’t know if we’re going to make it. On a positive note, I’ve also been told that once we get through this initial onslaught of illness, Alaina should have a rock solid immune system and will be much less likely to contract every little virus. Here’s hoping that that’s the truth.

I imagine much has changed as Alaina continues to learn and grow, but it’s becoming harder to remember when she learned how to do this or that. In my last post, I mentioned that she found her feet around my birthday, and it took her until Memorial Day to figure out how to get her toes in her mouth. 

It’s still the cutest thing ever (I don’t consider her feet to be gross yet because she’s not using them to stomp around yet). And although she rolled over a few times that weekend, she didn’t really get the hang of it until last weekend (6/1). Now she’s only on her stomach for a few seconds at a time because she rolls right over. I have to admit that I’m guilty of putting her on her stomach much more often than I used to just because I want to see her roll. (You can see her roll here.)

We’ve also had a lot more success with rice cereal. There are still days when she’s not interested in it at all, but other times she’s really excited to get that food in her mouth. She even makes a little noise when I stick the spoon in her mouth…maybe mimicking the “mmmm” that I’ve been saying all along? Alaina had her 4 month check-up a few weeks ago (about 2 weeks later than it should have been, but that’s the schedule we’re on with the doctor’s office), and we got the go ahead to start fruits and vegetables at five months. For some reason I’ve been really anxious to let her try new foods lately, I guess just because I love each and every new experience with her, so I imagine we’ll get around to that sooner than later. I’m currently contemplating making pureed foods for her instead of buying her jars of who-knows-what at the store. It doesn’t seem like a difficult task, just something else to take up time in my day. I’ve also read a bit about a practice called “baby led weaning” where people give their babies pieces of “real” food instead of mush and let them work at figuring out how to handle it, and I’m thinking of trying some of that too. She’s so good at putting absolutely everything straight into her mouth…I’d love to give her a cooked carrot or a piece of banana and see how she reacts to it. Of course that’s opening things up for a gigantic mess, which will make meal times take much longer than they need to. So we’ll see which way we go with that.

At her four month check-up, Alaina was 13 lbs. 11 oz. and 24 ¼ inches long (at least I’m pretty sure those were the measurements). The doctor checked her ability to sit up with assistance (she’s been doing that for months) and a few other things that she is, of course, awesome at. I get pretty excited when I read lists of the “milestones” babies should be hitting in this month or that and I see that in many ways Alaina is way ahead of the curve. On the other hand, there are things that she could be doing already that she’s not. So it’s a bit too early to diagnose her as a total genius, and we need to remember that. One day I told her that I don’t care if she grows up to work at McDonald’s because I’ll love her no matter what, and I hope to be able to keep that promise. 

Also at her four month check-up, Alaina was diagnosed with pink eye – her first “real” illness with a name and a treatment, not just “mystery virus x” that we just had to wait out. Luckily, her eye never really seemed to bother her—she just had some greenish goop in her eye for a few days—but that’s probably related to the fever she had for the next two days. Her doctor’s appointment was on a Monday, and her school called me on my way to pick Alaina up to let me know that she had a fever. I wasn’t overly concerned since we were on our way to the doctor anyhow, but the fever meant that she couldn’t get her four month shots that day (which I didn’t want her to have to get anyhow, but I wanted to get that over with) and that she couldn’t go back to school until she was fever-free for at least 24 hours. Her doctor warned us that the fever could last for several days, and as it turned out she did have it through Wednesday, so I just decided to keep her out of school for the rest of the week to give her some germ-free time. I was lucky enough to be able to work from home that week, and Lainey was the perfect patient. She got a little cranky when her head was hurting…mostly just laying around moaning…but Tylenol was her friend on those days and she perked up quickly after each dose. She did sleep a lot, which allowed me to get my work done, but it was nice to get to spend time with her like that again. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m dying to quit my job and become a stay-at-home mom, but there is something so appealing about not having to get ready to face the world every day!

(I should mention that Alaina did get her shots the next week. I still was sick inside thinking about it, so Philip bravely took her into the exam room and held her while I waited in the waiting room. She took it much better than she took her two month shots, thankfully. Maybe next time I won’t be so nervous. Yeah right.)

After her week at home, we ventured to Cleveland for Memorial Day because it was my grandma's birthday and my cousin Melanie and her kids were in town. I can't remember the last time I saw Melanie in Cleveland, but I suspect that it was at her baby shower when she was pregnant with her daughter who is now 5 years old! The last time I saw her anywhere was in Washington D.C. about a year and a half ago when she was pregnant with her son, who turned 1 recently. So it was nice to see them and to see other family and to let them see how much Alaina has grown and changed since the last time we visited.

So as we close in on Alaina’s sixth month, I am still counting my blessings because I have such a happy, easy-going, adorable kid. I guess that could mean that she’s going to be a crazy toddler or that we’re going to be pulling our hair out when she’s a teenager (if we still have hair). These days I catch myself looking at older kids and feeling sad about the fact that Alaina’s not going to be a baby forever. I never understood how fun and entertaining babies could be until that little girl stole my heart. I’m sure we’ll have our ups and downs, but I hope that no matter how old she gets, and how independent she becomes, that Alaina will still let us share her joys and discoveries with her.