5 month update

October 3 marked Lydia's 5 month day. She is definitely showing her own personality, being more giggly and easily tickled than we remember her older sister being at this age. We can all get her to laugh. She is free with her smiles and especially likes watching her older sister.

She is spending more time by herself on her mat, though she'll let us know when we need to pay attention. In the past few weeks, she has started grabbing for things and successfully making contact ...

...and she is really starting to enjoy tummy time.

The other day marked her finding her feet and soon after making sure they were tasted accordingly.

Here's Miss E in her 5-month photo ...

Other changes ....

Tonight (10.10) marked the first night Lydia did not spend a good deal of time in Ashley's arms, asleep between feedings. Ashley started "sleep training" today - putting Lydia down awake and soothing her by putting her right back down so that Lydia can learn to go to sleep on her own. We have been trying to this for awhile now but had gotten pretty relaxed about it during the day. As of day 1 of really trying, it is already working, too! Right now (at 10) she's been asleep in her crib by herself since 8.

Today also marks the day that Lydia rolled over from her back to her front. Although she has been making it about 90% of the way for a week or so now, she finally made the full turn this afternoon ... Ashley was in the kitchen when it happened and just barely saw the end of the flip. Appropriate since Eden's furst full roll happened when we had left the room one night.

Lydia has also started solid food - oatmeal and green beans already. We'll do sweet potatoes in the next few days.

Finally, we're not quite sure how much she weighs since our scale needs a new battery, but Lydia has just recently moved into size 3-6 month clothes. We can tell she's growing, and her chubbiness gets cuter every day.

p.s. Lydia loves mylar helium balloons. Lately, we've had one with Elmo's face and one smiley face -- she stares them down whenever they are in sight. Another thing she loves is for you to say, "Don't you eat those hands" and move her hands out of her mouth when she is trying to chew on them. It cracks her up every time.