Five

Maddie Lou Who!!

You're five months old today! Holy cow! Five whole months! And it really has gone by in a flash. It's like I blinked twice back when you were still safe in my water balloon, saw you as a newborn and now you're this tiny marvelous semi-mobile creature!

Yep. That's right folks. Madeline is semi-mobile. She's working on lunging on all fours and is a champion backwards scooter when she wants the object juuuuust out of reach in front of her. Crazy but true.

This past month has been awesome. Full of adventures and triumphs.

We started the month off with your very first trip. Just you and I flew all the way out west to see my best friend Heather Kunz get married to her lumberjack. You got to meet my other very good friend Amanda too and sat in a high chair for the very first time!

It was so very lovely and green out there. We spent some time in Heather's backyard in Rexburg ID and you seemed to love it. I certainly did. It was a lovely change from good ol' Florida! 

 It was a short trip and you were a champion traveler until I lost your paci on the last leg from the Vegas airport home... whoops! Before that little adventure, you were scooped up and showed off at the Salt Lake airport by a group of retired Chinese travelers. They were SO enamored with you. They all stood around and chattered and took pictures with you. It was quite the surreal experience since none of them spoke English and we don't speak Chinese but you were a trooper and very fascinated with them.

When we returned home you decided for the first few days to take two 2 hour naps a day. It was heavenly and i thought you FINALLY had this whole napping thing figured out. I was wrong because after about 3 days of blissful naps you went back to your unpredictable catnapping ways. 

The last weekend of May was Memorial Day weekend. My dad, your Papa, drove down to Savannah GA for the weekend for a job interview so we decided to make the 4 hour drive up since you hadn't met him yet. Just like your sister at your age, you were cool with him in short bursts but anything longer than 5 minutes and you gave this terrifically sad look and started to cry. Don't worry. You'll warm up to him. He's pretty awesome. I promise. 

We made you a little nest in the hotel room and you slept from 8 until 5;45 without a peep. We were stressing about sleeping all together in one room because you tend to be a light sleeper but you were a champ. We were so proud.

On the way home from our Georgia excursion, we stopped by Peach World. Obviously nothing here interested you all that much but we did get a family photo and it was a fun little part of our trip. 

You're starting to LOVE to sit up more and more often. You're also really getting the hang of holding things. (No pun intended) Your current favorite thing to hold is a plastic spoon. I had to convince your sister that it was okay for you to borrow one because they're 'hers'. 

You also tried your first food this month. It was sweet potatoes. I swore we were going to just skip the purees all together with you and only offer table foods and let you figure things out but after a few weeks of lip smacking and chewing motions and you staring me down whenever i ate, we decided to try it. You were excited for about three spoonfuls and then proceeded to push whatever you had left in your mouth right back out again. So i didn't push it. I gave you the spoon and you played with it a while and i got to eat my dinner while you watched me intently. 

At five months old you can;

Bring objects to your mouth and rarely miss

sit up unassisted for about 10 seconds at a time

get up on all fours

scoot backwards

roll front to back and allllllllmost can go back to front if you could just learn to kick that arm out from underneath you

you still wear 0-3 month and newborn size clothing, though the newborn pants are more like capris now. you're one tiny little turkey!

You babble when you wake up most of the time at night

You can make an 'n' and 'g' sound

you can rotate yourself completely around while on your tummy

you cried it out for the first time and have been sleeping better during the day since that night

you still love your paci while you sleep as much as i want you to be rid of it. 

you still LOVE to nurse and are starting to finally fill out a bit more. 

Sometimes you'll smile at strangers but in general you're still super clingy to me. 

I can't wait to see what this next month brings. 

First haircut

Noella has had haircuts before. I trimmed her bangs up when she was about 18 months old and I've barely trimmed the ends to get rid of some of the split ends and even things up the tiniest bit. But I knew she was REALLY growing up the day she came to me and asked for a haircut in a SALON and NOT at home. 

Being the frugal mama i am, i called a few places around town. Most places charge an arm and a leg for haircuts even for little kids and i was worried that Noella, being only four, wouldn't have the patience to sit in the salon chair for two hours and i certainly didn't want to pay $30 for a first haircut. Sorry babe, but it's true.

Luckily there's a hair school right down the road so if she wanted to bail partway through, i wouldn't be out that much money.  I made an appointment and Noella was unbelievably excited.

She was pretty patient while we figured out what to do with her hair. I had initially wanted to cut it into a chin length bob but Noella was adamant that she wanted to keep her "Rapunzel hair" so we compromised with two inches off and some layers added in. 

Getting through the hairwashing was a bit of a struggle. Noella was unsure of leaning back into the bowl but finally relaxed once the water started to stream through her hair. 

It was hard for me to see her in that chair because my little mama heart knew she's just getting that much bigger. She's too cool for me to cut her hair now. She's too grown up and sophisticated. 

Watching her in that chair was a funny transition for me. She instantly went from my toddler into a pre-schooler. I've known for a long time that she hasn't been a toddler but there was something that just clicked for me when i saw her sitting up there in a 'real salon' chair. She just suddenly LOOKED so grown up and just... BIG. 

Noella was pretty enthralled with the big mirror in front of her. It was pretty funny to watch her watch herself.  She kept pulling finny faces and then laughing at herself. 

In the end, it wasn't a dramatic change but she looks just so darn grown up to me. But perhaps it is a case of mama-goggles. 

She sure has come a long way from her first trim in her high chair so so long ago.