5 months old

Zoe is 5 months old today. She's growing up so fast! It seems like the past few days have brought nothing but new things for her. She rolled over for the first time on Sunday. She has begun to schootch (technical term) when she's on her tummy. It seems like her first real progress towards crawling! And, she picked up her paci and put it in her mouth on her own today. Here's a picture of her putting her foot in her mouth. It seems like everything goes into her mouth now. And here's a rare picture of her laughing. She does laugh quite a bit, especially at her Daddy but she freezes up when I pull out the camera. She's also sitting up so well. She still needs to be supported or propped up but she's getting there! In this pic, she was practicing her noises. She does a razzing type sound that sends slobber flying. And finally a picture taken tonight of her in her new high chair. She seems to enjoy eating the cereal as long as we mix the oatmeal in with the rice cereal. The last two nights we've mis-judged the right time for feeding her the cereal and we've waited until she's too tired or too hungry to deal with eating the cereal. We aren't going to fight with her and force her to eat the cereal if she doesn't want to. There will be plenty of things to fight over in the future! When we do have a good time picked out to feed her the cereal, she enjoys eating it and eagerly anticipates the next bite! Now for the What your Baby May Be Doing for 5 months... By five months, your baby.... Should be able to: hold head steady when upright- yes on stomach, raise chest, supported by arms- yes pay attention to an object as small as a raisin- yes squeal in delight- not yet reach for an object- yes but clumsy smile spontaneously- yes smile back when you smile- yes grasp a rattle held to backs or tips of fingers- yes keep head level to body when pulled to sitting- yes Will probably be able to: roll over (one way)- yes bear some weight on legs- yes say 'ah-goo' or similar vowel-consonant combination- yes razz (make a wet razzing sound)- yes turn in the direction of a voice- yes May possibly be able to: sit without support- no May even be able to: pull up to standing position from sitting- no stand holding on to someone or something- no object if you try to take a toy away- yes work to get a toy out of reach- no pass a cube or other object from one hand to another- no look for dropped object- no rake with fingers a tiny object and pick it up in fist- no babble, combining vowels and consonants such as ga-ga-ga, ba-ba-ba- yes

New Things Every Day!

Having a bad day? Here's your cure.... It seems like every day brings something new that Zoe can do. -She found her feet last weekend. When she nurses now, she must hold onto her foot while eating or she gets very upset. -On Thursday, Ms. Rita commented that Zoe had been sucking on her thumb. Sure enough, that night she fell asleep while sucking her thumb. She doesn't want to use her paci as much now, opting for her thumb instead. -She grabs onto things and people now. She was playing on the floor recently and reached out and felt Bella. She immediately grabbed at that soft fur. Bella was very surprised that the loud baby would reach out and grab her!

-We tried some oatmeal cereal which went over much better than the rice cereal. She's still not a big fan of being spoon fed but we aren't rushing her. Here are a few pictures and video from the first time we tried the cereal. To say it wasn't her favorite thing to try would be a huge understatement.

4 months

Today at her 4 month check-up, Zoe weighed 14 lbs 2 oz which is in the 70% for weight and she measured 25 1/8" which is 80% for length. Everything looks good but she has been referred to a pediatric eye doctor to look at her eyes. You may have noticed that one eye drifts just a little bit. Zoe's pediatrician is not worried about it at all and thinks it will resolve by the time she's a year old but because there's family history of eye problems, we are going to get it checked out just in case. In other news, we get to start her on cereal now. Once a day before bed, we'll try spoon feeding her a few ounces of rice or oatmeal cereal. I'll be sure to take pictures and post them! Well, miss Zoe is crying and grumpy so I'm going to go make her happy.

2nd Post!

Make sure to scroll down past this post. I posted an earlier post with pictures and a short description of our visit to Colorado. One of the great new things that Zoe started doing is 'talking'. She was making a lot of noises before we went to Colorado but her cousin Ewan was very vocal and it seemed like she learned a few tricks from him. I took several videos of her expressing herself. In some of them, you'll hear me talking to her. She talks more if she's involved in a conversation with a give and take. You may also notice the camera suddenly shake in some of the videos. She takes great pleasure in kicking it while I'm trying to record her. She's such a wiggle worm!

Gaaa!

We are finally all healed and better. Zoe developed a respiratory infection just before we left for Colorado. However, with the help of the dry moutain air and some medicine, she was doing much better in no time at all. We had a wonderful trip to Colorado and enjoyed seeing everyone. Zoe met her cousin Ewan. He is 8 days older than she is but weighs 5 pounds more than she does. It was so neat to see the two babies around each other. They both made it a point to keep their fists in their mouths as often as possible. We put them down on the floor next to each other. For the most part, they ignored each other. You can see that they are about the same length but certainly not the same width. They did occassionally reach out and accidently touch each other. There was enough cute baby for everyone! Grandma Linda couldn't wait to hold both of them at the same time. Daddy borrowed some sunglasses (Jacob's I think) and put them on Zoe while she was relaxing in his lap. She didn't mind at all and her coolness persevered. And we of course had to step outside of Aunt Beth's house to get a shot of our family with Pike's Peak in the background. Zoe also had a chance to meet her Daddy's side Great Grandparents. I'm waiting for additional pictures from other family members that had their cameras but here's one of Zoe with her Great Grandma Gladys. Just after this picture was taken, Zoe fell fast asleep in her lap. Zoe has her 4 month doctor appointment tomorrow. We'll get an updated weight and length and I'll post and update tomorrow. Last week at her appointment for her respiratory gunk, she weighed 13 lbs 1 oz. I'm sure she'll be about the same. She also has to get another 4 shots so I'm sure she'll be in a grumpy mood.