Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Adventures of Anna Dumpling, Age 5 Months

Last Friday, Anna turned five months old. She's a sparkling little firecracker, a precious little diamond.

Here's the current state of Anna affairs:

No matter how much milk I have in the evenings, she insists on a bottle. Every time. Now I could be firm and refuse to give her bottles. After all, if she's hungry enough, she'll nurse. But we haven't done that. 1. I don't mind giving her a little bit of formula, and we mix some rice cereal with the bottles now. 2. It puts some of the feeding responsibility on Daddy. 3. Her cry is really, really intense. It's not just a fussy whine, it's a shriek.

A couple weeks ago, we acquired a Jumperoo. It's a free-standing jumping apparatus for babies. We had a johnny-jump-up, but we don't have any doorways on the first floor of our house other than our bedroom and the bathroom. Lots of arches. No place for the jump-up. Luckily, the nice Fisher-Price people make a contraption that sits on the floor. Anna loves this thing. She jumps so well, and it keeps her nicely entertained for at least ten minutes. It's located right next to Ben's toy box, and she enjoys watching him play with his trucks.

Everything is going in her mouth now. Yes, folks. We've reached that stage. She will pull things within reach into her mouth. Remotes, paper, orange slices, apple slices, phones, cords, blankets, fingers, noses, etc. You get the idea. This is quite cute, especially when she sucked on her first tart orange.

She's scooting on her belly a bit. Just an inch or so at a time, but Daddy cheers her on.

When she's lying in our arms when she's supposed to be falling asleep, she'll sometimes reach up and grab and pinch our faces repeatedly. The nose, the cheeks, the eye brows, the lips, the tongue, the chin. Everything. It's not gentle caressing, either. It's rough and forceful and determined.

Oh and how verbal she is. She's babbling all the time now. Coos and gurgles and giggles. She spits raspberries and makes farting noises with her lips. It's charming.

She's growing up so quickly. Look how well she holds her head up when she's on her belly!