Nora- 5 Months Old

Highlights from the past month:

Jazz at the Zoo on Monday evenings
Titanic Exhibit at the Grand Rapids Public Museum
July 3rd bonfire at Marci's with our families
July 4th cookout at our house with the Martino family and fireworks in Ada
Visiting Spoonlickers for the first time
Weekend up in Horton Bay with Nancy
"Girl's Breakfast" with Lyn at Panera
Cookout at Paul and Naomi's
Graydon stays with Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Bob for a couple nights
Lunch on the deck at Rose's
Emma's 1st Birthday Pool Party
Dinner with my friend Megan from Florida at Blue Water Grill
My 10 Year Reunion and staying the night with the Buchingers
Colette's Dedication and 1st Birthday Party-You are my sunshine!


  The last time I weighted Nora she was around 12.5 lbs. We started cloth diapering this month and they they are fitting Nora great. We still use disposables at night, size 2, and when we go places for the most part.

I have still been leaving Nora occasionally, although she will no longer take a bottle at all and she completely refuses them. It has been very frustrating! She only wants to nurse.  It just makes it hard and worries me if there was every an emergency and I was not able to feed her. We have tried other bottles and what not but she just will not have it. I have a ton of breast milk frozen but hate that every time we have tried a bottle I have wasted about 4 oz.

Nora still has not had any solids and I have decided to wait until 6 months and then we will start feeding them to her. At this point with Graydon he was eating solids well.

She loves to watch TV, which we seem to have on a lot because of Graydon. ;)  She is not too fond of being in her crib and watching her mobile though. I do not think she likes to be away from us. We had transitioned Graydon down into his crib around this time and hopefully we will do that with Nora in the next month or two but not sure when yet. 

The last week, week and a half of month 4 was ROUGH. I am assuming it was another growth spurt but there were days where Nora did not nap at all and then would wake me up at night every 1.5-2 hours. I was feeling very exhausted by the time the month was over!

 Nora is fitting into some of her 6 month clothing now, especially onesies and sleepers. She can still fit into some of her 3 month pants, which fits her waist perfectly. 

She is loving all of her toys and chewing on most everything.  She loves her playmat, and is also using her jumpy now, although only one foot can touch the ground. Her head control is great now.



She barely spits up anymore and has not been drooling as much lately, so no bibs yet still.

Nora is also strong enough to "stand" up now when we are holding her. She is getting quite the personality. We just love all her big smiles and little laughs. She has also started "talking" to us. There was a week or so after my reunion where she "growled" at us on and off, it is hilarious. She is cooing quite a bit now.

Nora is still trying to "sit up" a lot. I call it "working on her core", lol. The problem is that she does this for a while and then bangs her head down on the ground and starts to cry. She just wants to sit up so bad!  She still really loves playing with her feet too and occasionally with suck on her toes. She also likes to suck on her thumb sometimes which if I notice I try to stop her right away. We have been working on the pacifier a bit but she will only keep it in her mouth for a short period of time.

 Nora has been interesting with her naps...usually only one in the afternoon and the only way she will take a short one in the morning or evening is if I'm holding her. It is hard...sometimes I put her down and she wakes right up. She will really only nap in her swing. For the first time this past month I had to let her cry it out once. I did not want to at all but I was desperate! She seems to do well since then. If she wakes up when I put her in the swing she might fuss for a bit but then usually falls asleep thankfully!

Another first this month was that she fell asleep on someone else while they were holding her at Emma's pool party. And she slept for like almost over 2 hours, it was awesome!!! She also did pretty good when we were up in Horton Bay on the beach. We took our portable swing. I think she slept decent in that because we were outside a lot and it tired her out.

Nora is still sleeping in the swaddler at night, which I would really like to get rid of soon but she really sleeps well in it so we will keep at it! During the day she naps in her swing with a muslin blanket lightly wrapped around her.  I am wondering when and how we get rid of this swaddler?! Maybe when she is a bit bigger??

Nora's hair has also gotten a lot blonder, which happened with Graydon too around this age. I cannot wait to see what she looks like within the next year or two. She is such a pretty girl. :)  I just love to kiss her ALL the time!