Five Months: The Lost Month

Dear Liliana,

Month five always seems to get lost in there somewhere.  It’s just not particularly notable.  But then I find myself wiggling you into jeans size 3-6 months and realize that you are on the upper limit of that size.  Really?  That close to half a year old?  So aside from blazing through your wardrobe (Although let’s be real here, it’s been winter for pretty much forever, so you are just going from one set of pjs to another.  It’s not like you’re leaving the house to party or anything.).  So many cute clothes that you will never wear.  Such a travesty!

Speaking of clothes, you have a total of three shirts that do not involve pink.  When I dressed you in the light blue outfit which your wore to our free tax appointment, take two (4 hours to do taxes and you rocked that last 2 hour segment) three people thought you were male.  You were wearing pink socks!  Give me a break!  Another wardrobe note: almost all your pants are pink and yet I had to put all of them aside the other day because none of the nine pairs of pink pants matched the pink in your shirt.  This is life with girls.

But the other day I found out that you have inherited a red turtleneck so we got to be all match-y for one day.  We will never match while you are predominantly in pink pants because I own zero pairs in that color.

You are such a chunky breastfed baby.  You are sporting those big baby thighs and I walk around the house uttering things like “You are such a chubba-wubba!” and “Look at the chubby-wubby-bubby!”  I don’t even know what that means (neither does your daddy) and you would think that I, and not your brothers. was learning to rhyme words, but there you are.  Three children ago people who talked about babies and wanting to “eat them up” or talked about cheeks/thighs/fingers/insert random pudgy body part here in terms I had only used for food, kind of freaked me out.  And now I get it.  I am one of those people and you are one of those babies and I just want to eat you up because you are so delicious.

In rational words, you are flirting with 17 pounds.

You are not rolling over, yet, but you are flirting with that as well.  You are like a beached whale when I have you swaddled and you whap your “tail” up and down.  A few times I have put you to bed and then found you turned 180 degrees when I come and get you up.

You are trying to move.  It will come soon enough and then I can completely freak out because there are legos everywhere.

You have embraced your voice this month and enjoy a variety of screaming, talking, babbling, and vocal exercises that remind me of high school choir.  When you are talk you are loud (yay) just like most of our family.  Having found your voice, you usually are happy to talk yourself to sleep or talk for a while upon waking.  So cute to hear you from the other room sounding so happy.  You have also discovered your hands, which is so stinking cute!  We catch you staring at them, cross eyed, as you hold them in front of your face.  Stretch them away, pull them in, it’s like a crazy self-imposed vision test.

Along with your hands, you are also enjoying holding onto toys and other soft baby things that your brothers (not me) keep pulling out to play with.  You have a soft book with different textures and little tags and whenever I put it on your tummy you look like you’re trying to make out with it.  I would like to think this indicates a deep interest in early literacy.

The time change was good for you.  Suddenly we sprang forward and voila!  Sleep regularly occurred in 5-8 hour chunks.  Hallelujah!  I still shuttle you back and forth between the pack n play in the living room and the one in our bedroom and I still sleep with ear plugs.  Sleeping arrangements are weird but at least more sleep is being had and that is good enough for me.

And your brothers.  Oh, your crazy brothers.  They fight around you.  They fight over you.  They fight over your toys.  They adore making you laugh.

We are trying to get them to call you by your name and not just “the baby”.  When I bring you out in the morning it is not uncommon now for Jonathan to say, “Good morning, Lee-nana.”  So cute.  Isaac is happy to stick up for you in public, whether you need it or not.  They seem to be doing pretty well with you, all things being equal.

So there you are, my sweet chubby-wubby baby!  On to month 6!

Love,

Mom