Five months

Dear Mallory,

Blink! – and another month is gone. You are five months old now, and this has been a big month – lots going on and many milestones reached. I really love this age of babyhood; you are so sweet and cute, your personality is starting to emerge, but we’re not yet into any of the grief that comes with separation anxiety or the growing assertion of your independence. I could almost keep you five months old forever, if I weren’t so excited to see what comes next.

Ah, but wait. If you stay five months old forever, I shall never again get to sleep through the night. Every month when I write you this letter, I think, surely by this time next month, she’ll be sleeping through the night. And every month, I’m wrong. I don’t quite understand what happened, because before our camping trip last month, you were only up once each night, and ever since that trip you have been up three or four times a night, and it feels like it’s never going to get better. I would love to know what happened on that trip to change things. Another change in your sleeping habits is that you and Liam are starting to move off of the synchronized afternoon nap. Sometimes you nap around the same time, but sometimes you stay awake after lunch while he rests, and then you drift off right when he’s getting up. This means that, number one, I no longer get a break during the day! And number two, we are housebound for the afternoon. It gives me that much more incentive to get us out of the house to do something each morning, that’s for sure. When you are old enough to read this, you are probably going to think I am crazy for harping on your sleeping habits so much. But after five months of multiple wake-ups every single night, all I can say is that I totally understand how sleep deprivation can be used to torture prisoners of war. It really is that effective!!

So do I have anything good to say about your sleeping habits? Well, yes. Right after I wrote my exam and finished my summer course (on August 17th, to be precise), I started being merciless and letting you cry it out at night. That first night, you cried for almost an hour, on and off, before finally settling down to sleep. I sat beside you the entire time. The good news is that you weren’t inconsolable; you were just plain ticked. The next night, I put you down awake, and you rolled right over and went to sleep. And that was the end of it – ever since then, you’ve gone to bed (a) much earlier (like around 8 – 8:30 instead of 10 – 10:30) and (b) without any fuss.

Well, we did have one setback. A few weeks ago, you got your first tooth! At 4 months old! I couldn’t believe it – this is so early, it never even crossed my mind that you could be teething. But you are, and as a result you had a couple of fussy days during which I coddled you and rocked you to sleep again. Not to worry – you are back to bedding down on your own again, so all is well. That tooth doesn’t seem to be giving you any more grief, and there are no signs of other teeth yet. I can’t wait until it grows in a bit and you have an adorable little pearly white sticking up when you crack a smile – it’s going to be so, so cute.

You are still the smiliest little thing ever, so I expect to be seeing that tooth a lot. Right now you smile for all of us for a million silly little reasons, but there is something about Liam that makes you laugh hysterically. I really hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between you two. Right about now I am super thankful that your dad gave me a video camera for my birthday this year, because catching the two of you interacting like this for posterity – it’s priceless. Him doing something positively ridiculous, and you cackling like it’s the best thing ever. I hope he continues to be a good role model for you because if he jumped off a bridge, I am positive that you would follow. Another huge thing that has happened this month – yes, there’s more! – is that you have become mobile! I totally attribute this to how much you enjoy being on your tummy. You started out just stretching to reach things, and now you can roll, pivot, and shimmy to get where, and what, you want. You can hoist your entire torso up off the floor, and we’re starting to see you get your bum up now, too. A few times I have set you down on the floor with your legs tucked up under you like a frog, and you have stayed like that for several minutes, swaying a little, but surprisingly sturdy. I sure don’t think it will be long before you are off and crawling.

Your amazing baby brawn (you now weigh xx pounds xx ounces and are xx inches long) has also helped you to become an early sitter-upper. You are still known to take the occasional nosedive, but for the most part you are pretty good at playing while sitting up (with some protection against the occasional spill).
And, just yesterday, we fed you the good stuff for the first time. Runny rice cereal… and you slopped it up like there’s no tomorrow, grabbing for the spoon and shovelling it into your mouth. Yes, this is a little earlier than the six month age we so often see recommended; but when I told Dr. Bailey at your 4-month checkup that you seemed interested in food, she looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Well then, feed her already!” And, I keep going back to the fact that you were born late… so really, you are developmentally a few weeks ahead of schedule. And hey – if there is any way that this helps you to sleep more soundly at night – so much the better! This month, you took your first swim and went for your first trick-or-treat (two months early by most standards, but it was that time of year at The Summer Place). We went up to Stratford a couple of times, and I took you to Listowel to meet GG Robinson. We had several playdates, went to some special programs at the library, and you officially joined Baby Group. The days are flying by because we’re having so much fun… and I can’t wait for our next adventure together.

Love,
Mom