5 Months: Miss Marlo

(I'm late posting, but these pictures are from her 5 month birthday a few weeks ago, September 29th.)

Five months, she's such a big girl now!  At five months, Marlo absolutely loves songs and dancing.    I try to take her to Baby Rhyme Time a few times a week at the local libraries because she loves it so much.  It's also nice to see the different libraries around the city.  So far, the best one has been at the main library.  The man who led it was so animated and he taught me that Marlo's fascinated by scarves blowing in the wind.

Yesterday at Duboce Park, I took out a scarf and let it blow in the wind while Marlo was lying on a blanket on the grass.  It was the greatest thing; she just started laughing and smiling so big while she watched the polka dots flap in the wind.  She laughs a lot, usually me or Eric when we're being silly and singing, trying to make her laugh.  But this was different.  It was really an amazing moment to see her experiencing such joy through simple things in the world.

On this note, other things that babe is into right now:  peek-a-boo; Whitney Houston's, "How will I know?"  That songs gets her to smile so big!; her feet!  She just discovered these a few weeks ago and when I walk into the room, I often find her studying her feet (or hands); the cats!  She's much more aware of Blue and Bell and gets so excited when she pets them.  She grabs clumps of their hair and luckily, they are patient with her.  We are trying to teach her to be gentle and have added it's sign to the ones we use daily.  It's funny that the sign for gentle is stroking the back of your hand with your other hand--just like petting a kitty; and rolling over!  She's gotten pretty good at rolling from her tummy to her back.  If one side doesn't work for whatever reason, she'll try the other until mission accomplished. As for rolling from her back to her tummy, I know she can do it, but it's been more than a month since I've seen it!  Sneaky girl.

Another thing that's new is teething.  Poor sweetie's been a little more fussy lately and needing to constantly chew on things.  She's been waking up much more frequently at night to nurse.  I'm fine with it and want to sooth her as best as I can.  However, I also worry that I'm getting her so accustomed to nursing that she won't learn how to sleep on her own.  How do I balance that with taking into account that she's teething?  She's still so young and it doesn't feel right to let her "cry it out."  Although, I don't know if it ever feels right for parents--most I've talked to about it really struggle with it, but they do it because they need to.  Her 6 month check up at the pediatrician is in a few weeks so my plan is to wait it out and ask then.

I think I saw this quote somewhere recently, but I hope there's some truth to it:  "Behind every great kid is a mom who's sure she's screwing it up."