Elise 5 month old update

Today Elise is 5 months and 9 nine days old. Our recent at-home estimates of her height and weight are 25.5 inches long and about 18 pounds. She sees the doctor again next month, so we'll get official measurements then.

She's almost sitting up by herself. She still tends to fold in half (leaning too far forward) sometimes, but she's getting better at correcting herself and straightening up. She also still tends to tip over sometimes, but again is getting better at catching and supporting herself with her arm when she starts to fall to the side.


(You can see her teeth in this next picture)


Right after my last post about her not chewing on her toes, she started doing it. Apparently her left "thumb" toe (lol, Lauren!) is her favorite one to suck on. (A case of "be careful what you wish for"?)
She's becoming quite a good eater these days, too. Since my last post, she's started eating peas and carrots. She absolutely LOVES peas - more than the bananas, believe it or not! - and seems to really like carrots too. Here's a video Eric put together of her eating peas and bananas...



Here's another video of her trying to hold her bottle by herself...



We've recently introduced her to using a sippy cup, too. If you look close in this picture, you can see her teeth.

She's also graduated from the newborn/infant side of her bathtub to the straight-backed toddler side. Actually 'graduated' is probably not the most accurate description. See, she doesn't like to lay back in the tub on the slanted newborn/infant side anymore - she prefers to sit up straight and play in the water. S0 we've been putting her on the toddler side, and she sits up nice and straight and attempts to play with some floating toys she has. The problem is that she hasn't quite figured out to retrieve objects from a fluid surface. Therefore, as she attempts to grab the toys as they are floating in front of her, she tends to dunk them, fold herself in half, and dunk her head, face first, into the water along with the toys. (You've got to picture this: Her head, not just 'into the water.' I'm talking whole head, face first, completely under water.) Not that it really seems to bother her too much, though. The first time, it definitely surprised her - not to mention, scared the heck out of me! As I got her up and out of the tub, waiting for her to react, she just looked up at me and grinned. We're definitely going to have to keep a close eye on her anytime we're around any kind of body of water - she loves it!

Here's her thoughtful face...

I thought this next picture was cute because it looks like she's winking at Jake...


And, lastly here's the kids taking a little siesta...

Jake's 8th grade graduation and introducing Leo

Jake graduated from 8th grade on June 12th. Sorry it took me so long to post pictures, but with traveling to Boston then Eric's recent trip to New Mexico, I just now finally got a chance to download the pictures.

Here he is in line before the processional...


And, here he is afterwards with his diploma...


With the PetCo gift cards he received as graduation presents - thanks to Jorg and Martha, Nana, Poppy, Lauren, and Lee!- he was able to get a terrarium set up for a long awaited lizard (he's been talking about wanting to get a lizard for over a year now). He chose to get a baby leopard gecko - appropriately named Leo. Here is Leo in his new home.

The flopster rolling around

Here she is in one of her favorite pastimes of late...

going...
going...
gone!

Two teeth at once!

New news on the tooth front...it appears Elise is cutting both her bottom teeth at the same time. The second one poked through the gum yesterday! They're not out far enough to get a good picture, but as soon as I can get one I'll post it.

A momentous day...

Just a quick post to tell you about our momentous day...

First, Jake received a letter from the high school - yes, he's starting high school next year!! Apparently he did exceptionally well on the Spanish placement test for high school and the Spanish high school teachers recommend that he go into the Honors Spanish II class! He also made it into Honors English. Way to go, Jake!

Second, Elise's first tooth finally broke through the gum this afternoon! Its almost a little sad that her big goofy gummy grin will be gone, but its also very cute to see the tip of her little tooth poking out. I'll post pictures soon!

Solids, toes, and rolling down grass hills

So far, Elise has had rice cereal and bananas. While I could tell you all about her reactions, I thought you'd all like to see for yourselves.

And, the verdict is....

Bananas...good!


Cereal....bad!

Not just bad...but absolutely, horrendously bad!


Cereal and bananas mixed together....okay.

As you can see, she was very happy to not have just the plain cereal anymore. Bananas made it much better!


In other Elise-related news, she has definitely found her feet and mastered rolling from her back to her tummy. Although she hasn't really tried to chew on her feet like some (most?) babies do, she grabs her toes and plays with her feet a lot. If we were ranking her favorite things to do, playing with her feet would be one of her top three favorite activities.

Perhaps another of her fast becoming favorite activities would be rolling around. Hopefully this isn't just me, but...remember when you were a kid and rolling down a grass hill was a great source of enjoyment? At least until you realized you probably got chiggers because your legs, arms, and waistband started itching like crazy and it seemed like the most brutal test of your self-discipline and self-control that you would probably ever face to NOT scratch. Of course, that didn't stop you from rolling down the next big grassy hill when the opportunity presented itself - because it really was just THAT much fun. Anyway, back to the baby....

Remember rolling down grass hills - lengthwise, faster and faster, building up momentum as you went? Well, picture Elise rolling like that - except not outside and not downhill - rather, across the living room floor. It was the funniest sight! She rolled like that -back to tummy to back to tummy, etc. - building up some momentum as she went (granted she didn't get going too fast, definitely not the kind of momentum you get from going downhill, but she did pick up a little speed as she rolled) from the fireplace to the fish tank where I stopped her before she bumped into the tank. I carried her back over to her blanket in front of the fireplace where we were playing, and she proceeded to do it again - just rolled across the room - not as fast as the first time. I imagine it took a lot of energy as she seemed to be pretty worn out after she made it to the tank the second time, but she did roll all the way across the room. We've got to get it on video!

Not so sure about this cereal business...

Well, we tried this whole rice cereal thing this past week. The first night it seemed really promising. Elise seemed to enjoy it. I mixed it super thin, and she sucked it right up out of the baby spoon. It was cute! That was the first night. The second night she didn't want anything to do with it. I tried to give her some and she spit it back out at me. The third night was a little better. She wasn't as enthusiastic about it as she was the first night, but she definitely wasn't totally against the idea as she was the second night -- a happy medium. The fourth night again not too crazy about it, but not totally against it either. Then came tonight - the fifth night I've given (or tried to give) her cereal. It seemed like she was starting out excited about getting cereal - she opened her mouth really wide, made her uh-uh feeding noises, but no. She apparently did not really want to eat the cereal. As soon as I put it in her mouth, she blew raspberries which effectively sprayed my face with her thinned out cereal. She was waving her arms around like she was excited, though, and kept making her uh-uh feeding noises, so I thought, "well, maybe she was just too excited about it and spit it out on accident." So I gave her another bite, and given that she once again sprayed me with it, I think I was poorly mistaken about her enthusiasm to eat the cereal. So, needless to say, that was the end of the cereal for the night. Maybe we'll wait a few days, then try again.

Meanwhile, she's been a busy, active baby - playing and bouncing around. See for yourself...


I'm posting the following blurry action picture just to give you an idea of how much she really does move and bounce in her jumper.


Anyway, all that playing and bouncing around is enough to really wear a baby out!


And it makes for a nice mellow baby after bathtime following a long day of fun.