Five Months Old

Bella weighs about 14.5 lbs, and is approximately the size of a mandolin.



She has not rolled over again since the fateful night in her bed which resulted in no more swaddling, but she loves to move her feet around in circles, and standing is her favorite position to be in. She discovered her feet this month, and spends a lot of time trying to get her feet into her mouth. In the last few days she has actually managed to suck on her toes!





She has also found her thumb and has decided that it is the best finger to suck on.



Her eye-hand coordination has improved a lot, and when she reaches for something now, she always get it. It's so cute to watch her concentration as she focuses on an object, then slowly and deliberately reaches for it.



Bella is sleeping through the night almost every night now, from about 8:00 p.m. to around 7:00 a.m. Her naps, however, have gotten on a crazy non-schedule, and many days she will only take a couple of short (like 20 or 30 minutes) naps, with one longer nap in the morning. So I have not been able to get all the things done which I'd envisioned doing during her naps, and I've really had to adjust my expectations of what is possible for me to do while I'm at home with her. This is one of her favorite positions to sleep in:



Bella and I recently started going to the Athen's Mother's Center together, which is a group of mothers and their children who meet twice a week. Stephen and I decided that Bella needed some interaction with other adults and children (she had gotten to the point where she was actually frowning at other people, including my MIL), and that it might be good for me to have interaction with other adults too. It's been a nice way to meet more people, and most notably, we've met another little girl who's five months old, another Isabella who's two, and another mother who moved here from Tucson (and for you Tucson folks-- she lived at Tucson Blvd. and Glenn, which was just a couple of blocks away from our duplex at Mountain and Glenn). Bella loves being around the other children, even though she can't really interact with them yet. She always gives them a huge adorable smile, and I love the way that children seem to be drawn to her (they always want to see and touch the baby).