Anna's Fifth Month : Dykestrom Doings

Anna turned 5 months old yesterday!

It's been a pretty up and down month for us up here (see note below regarding sleep regressions). Anna got to see her first snowfall.

And dress up for her first Halloween.

Anna's motor skills have absolutely blown up this month. At her last checkup, the doctor said they usually look for baby to start grabbing at things with both hands around the six month mark, but not only was Anna already doing this at four months, now she's really getting good at it! <proud mama beaming>

<...and putting all the things out of reach>

It's wonderful to watch her reach eagerly for things, actually grab them, examine them, and then successfully stick them in her mouth. It's one of my favorite things to see her little thought bubble, "I need that," as she bends forward in her Bumbo, reaching with both hands for whatever has grabbed her attention.

She sometimes reaches out with an open hand, but a lot of the time, she tucks her thumb in and just reaches with her fingers.

It's been interesting to watch this whole journey of the thumb from newborn fist to what will eventually become the Handsy Toddler.
In the last couple of days, she discovered her feet, too, which has been absolutely adorable to witness.

She's loving her bouncer (thank you, Erek, for helping us get that wood trim back up!).

And she loves meeting new people and especially having them over for a visit.

My friend Bethany (who I didn't get any good pictures of!)

...and Bethany's daughter Esther who is 6 months older than Anna

Seriously. We go to the grocery store sometimes solely in the hope that someone will say hi and smile at us. She gets so sad when no one will talk to her.

About midway through this month, I'm thinking Anna hit the 4 Month Regression (her body went from sleeping like a baby *awake*asleep* to sleeping more like an adult *awake*kind-of-awake*dozing*deep-sleep*dozing*kind-of-awake*), and she suddenly stopped napping for longer than 30 minutes at a time (because that's the end of the deep-sleep phase). She is super crabby and sad after these micro naps. And I wish I could say that that has resolved itself, but sadly (for all involved), that is not the case.

We are currently pretty much stuck at 30 minute naps and 2-4 hour nighttime chunks (there were a lot more tears involved in that story, but I chose to leave them out, you're welcome). Those 5 hour nighttime chunks she was doing at the beginning of the month...those were nice.

This month Anna has been experimenting with sucking her thumb as well as her index finger.

I think she's also learning that this whole sucking on something thing makes her feel better when she feels anxious or unhappy. Which, hopefully, means we're getting closer to ditching the pacifier at night.

This month Anna has become completely delighted with making sounds with her mouth.

And she gets a kick out of it when we imitate her and when we show her things she hasn't figured out how to do yet, like trilling the tongue and making consonant sounds.

Anna is all about the hand puppets and stuffed animals right now.

I believe she thinks they are actually live animals, but they let you pet them and chew on them (unlike our beloved real live animals).

Anna has achieved the back-to-belly roll, though both directions of roll still mostly feel like accidents. She's rolling on her side pretty solidly.

There was even a day she started doing the inchworm. We can prove it (but not right now because I'm already late with this post and can't be bothered with video).