January 2, 2016

thea - five months

Five months old.  On one hand I absolutely love the stage we are in.  Thea is so flipping cute and smiley.  On the other hand, ohmygawd I'll never sleep again and I'm going to die from exhaustion.  Also, my back hurts from carrying an always wants to be held but not really baby all the time.  Thea girl, you needy!

Thea_5months_3

Truthfully?  I think my expectations are just high.  Thea is really becoming a pretty easy going girl as long as she isn't tired.  Unfortunately she can't last too long before she is tired, but overall she doesn't complain a ton.  Currently she is battling one monster of a cold and it is just a real buzzkill.  Her nose is runny, her cough is nasty, and you can just tell from her hoarse little voice that her throat hurts.  It is heartbreaking.  I think Tylenol helps, but she conveniently hates taking it, so it is tough to get some in her.  I took her to the pedi just to make sure her lungs sounded clear, and thankfully they are for now.  The only bonus is that I actually know how much she weighs!

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I believe Thea's weight gain is really starting to slow down.  I'm still guessing she is big for her age, weighing 15 pounds 8 ounces.  However I guessed Ryann to be at 15 pounds 9 ounces when she was five months old, so maybe T is starting to even out with them.  Still mostly wearing 3-6 month clothing, however a lot of it does seem small.  Leggings for sure work better in the 6-12 month size, dresses and sleepers are best in the 3-6 month size, and in tops both sizes kind of suck.  3-6 are definitely too short, but 6-12 the arms are too long and the width just seems off.  We did move her up to size three diapers because the two's didn't seem like they were long enough.  Maybe she's going to wind up being tall, who knows.

Sleep sucks right now.  There is no other way to put it.  There is absolutely zero consistenacy in her 'schedule', and she no longer gives me a long stretch at night.  Well last week we couldn't get her down for the night until sometime between 11-12, and then she'd sleep like 6-7 hours.  So I got a reasonable stretch.  But babies aren't supposed to stay up until midnight Miss Thea!  She watched a few of the Star Wars movies with Christopher and I, no big deal.  Most recently she has been going to bed around 8pm, and waking up at 11:45ish, then again sometime in the 2-3 o'clock hour, but she won't go back to sleep for an hour or two at that time.  Oy.  And naps, well, they still range in length from 30 minutes to 4 hours and you just never know what you're going to get.  I'm still nursing her to sleep, she is still sleeping swaddled, and in the rock 'n play.  I really wanted to move away from all of those things, but there were a lot of tears and not a lot of sleep for anyone, so we gave up for a bit.  Soon though.  Especially if her sleep continues to suck, we might as well.  I'm tired.  She's tired.  We need to figure something out.

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Miss Thea has really worked on her gross motor skills this month.  She rolls back to belly like a speed racer.  Throws her legs up in the air and whips herself over.  And then promptly gets pissed because she doesn't really want to be on her belly.  She can roll belly to back, but isn't great at it and hasn't really done it consistently.  She can push up on her arms and rotate to get things that she wants.  She has also started pulling her knees under her here and there.  I'm really really REALLY hoping she is a little bit later of a crawler.  Both Ryann and Elsie were fully mobile before they were seven months old.  When Elsie was a baby, Ryann didn't really have toys with a ton of little pieces.  Now?  Now our house is littered with choking hazards on a regular basis.  And anything Thea can get her hands on, she attempts to put in her mouth.  So, yeah...

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When Sarah's little guy was in the 6-8 month range-ish I think, I could only hold him for a short while because he wanted to be jumping up and down constantly.  It was quite the arm workout!  And wouldn't you know, now I've got my own little jumper.  Thea hates being held in a seated position.  She would much rather be standing.  And constantly constantly jumping.  Thea really figured out how to work the jumperoo the last few days and man does she love it.  She can really get it going!

Thea gets more and more grabby every day.  She is perfecting her hair pull and has a thing for Elsie's curls.  Which I tell Elsie is simply karma, seeing as she used to pull Ryann's hair ALL THE TIME.  Sometimes when I'm holding her, Thea will slowly slide her hand up the back of my neck, and then all the sudden grab a hunk of hair and pull.  Such a sweetheart.  I used to be able to carry her around while I did things in the kitchen but now she is constantly trying to grab whatever I've got.  And reading books is nearly impossible.  I mean I'm terrible about sitting down with her to read a book as it as, but when I do she is pulling on it and trying to eat it.

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Nursing has been a little better this past month.  She isn't quite as squirmy.  Well, she often repeatedly smacks me in the face while nursing, but she isn't as wiggly.  She still sucks in public, but she doesn't seemed real phased if she doesn't get very much.  We were all set to attempt a bottle, I finally found my pump and had some milk ready.  And then I wasn't gone as long as I thought I was going to be and was home by the time she needed to eat so I just fed her.  Really I think we need to figure out how to get her to go to sleep on her own before I'm really going to leave her for a length of time anyway, so I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  She has no interest in eating solids that I can tell.  If you put a spoon or fork or anything by her face she just looks at you like you're an idiot.  Like "What the heck do you want me to do with that?  That's not a boob."  I didn't plan to start anything until after she was six months anyway, so I'm not phased.

Thea_5months_7

Thea still loves taking showers, and gets crazy pissed when we take her out.  Watching her sisters act like fools almost always makes her smile, and she giggles when they cry.  She has a thing for her Daddy, and her Papa too.  She tolerates the car seat and hates when I put lotion on her cheeks.  She could win the part as a baby Chewbacca with her baby gurgles.  She is pretty much adorable, despite the fact that she is constantly covering everything in spit up and drool.

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I love you so much Thea.

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