5 months

Ellie Mae 2/21/09

Well, folks, here it is. The day that is 5 months since I pushed out that little girl. Amazing!

And now it’s 3 days after that. Oops! Ellie forgives me, though, she told me so. This month has gone by so fast! Soon she’ll be 6 months – ack! She can grab her feet and likes to lay around holding onto them. They haven’t yet made it into her mouth. When on her tummy, she lifts all the way up on her hands and then lets them go and does that “flying” thing, where her hands are up in the air and her legs are up in the air and only her torso touches the ground.

Ellie! 2/9/09

She tries to grab whatever I’m working on, whether it’s a bowl of cereal, or putting a stamp on a letter. She still mostly wants to eat her toys, but also seems to be experiencing their textures and sounds. Jesse noticed the other day that she recognized her name. We were talking and she was playing on the floor and when I said her name, she looked up at me. If she’s with me when I turn the water on at the faucet, she grimaces in readiness for me to wash her face. And then if I do, she chases the washcloth with her tongue.

On my birthday, 2/25/09

She still approaches eating with a wide open mouth, like a little bird, bobbing her head around looking for my nipple. While eating, her arms and hands snake all over the place, usually ending up gouging at her eyes or trying to pull off her ear. She still loves to bounce, and when I try to get her to practice sitting, she pushes with her legs to stand up and then bounces. She still spits up often enough that Jesse and I can’t keep our clothes clean for long. She laughs at unpredictable times, though always will with just the right tickle. She likes to practice talking on her own – if I respond, she stops and looks at me expectantly.

Daddy's chair, 2/13/09

As you can see from the pictures, her smile is meltingly cute. When she’s excited and happy and meeting a new person, she almost shakes and shivers with delight. Her eyebrows are so expressive and her eyes are a turquoise green. Her hair has gotten almost an inch long in places on top of her head, but from across a room, she still looks bald. She’s holding her head up so high now that she finally has a neck and not just neck folds. Her skin is the softest in the world.

Elena and Jesse, 3/1/09

She just gets sweeter and happier and more fun with age. I don’t know how Jesse and I got so lucky!