Five Months

Our little Claire (AKA Clairy, Clairy-Bear, Claire-Bear, Clairy-Beary, and Clairity) turned five months old on Palm Sunday. It really feels like time is flying faster this time around. She'll be half a year next month! Crazy.

She's rolling over, front-to-back but not back-to-front (same as a month ago), and really grabbing at things, so she's enjoying tummy time and general play time on her play mat or in her bouncer. She still doesn't nap too too well, but dozes off and on and sleeps through the night about half the time. Other times, she'll wake up once—I've determined I think it depends on if her Swaddle Me blanket is on snug enough. The smaller size is getting tight and doesn't stay velcroed, and the bigger one I just bought is too loose around her legs.

She's drooling more, which might be first signs of teething (she already bites me with her strong, gummy jaw when nursing—and scratches, grabs, pulls, and otherwise mangles my breasts—but I still love nursing her!) She nurses every 2-3 hours when I'm with her, and has four bottles of 6 ounces each during the school day. I'm still pumping four times a day (morning, night, and twice at work).
She started solids last week, which was earlier than I'd planned (the APA recommends waiting until closer to 6 months, and I held off with Kate until 5 1/2 months). But Claire is teeny and our doctor said it would give her some iron and vitamins that even breastmilk doesn't have. So, that's good. We're mainly just practicing the nomming skill with it right now; just one serving of baby cereal a day, not sending it to school yet or anything.

Love this pic. Kate was enjoying helping feed her. I said to Kate, "I think she likes solids!" to which Kate responded incredulously, "Claire don't like SALAD!"

Claire does like to be raised up in the air, to play with her toys, and especially to watch her sister. This was the first month Claire really started showing interest in Kate, and she was really enamored. Kate, likewise, coos all over Claire and loves to make her smile. We're getting glimmers of future years, as Kate cries, "she scratched me!" and other tattles, and Kate gets a kick out of taking Claire's toys away from her. Fun times ahead! 

Size-wise, Claire is still on the lower end of the percentile chart (10-15th percentile) but is pretty true to size as far as clothes go. She's wearing 3-6 mos clothes and a size 1 diaper and shoe. Check out her growth over time. I took Kate's picture with Marcel the Monkey every month, and I'm doing Claire's with her Sister Bear Kate brought her when she was born, but I really love these Sticky Bellies stickers!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . you just keep growing and growing!