5 months

Pancake turned five months yesterday, and had her weight check appointment to commemorate the day. After only gaining three pounds in the first four months of her life she gained a whopping pound and 12 ounces in less than a month to bring her to 11 pounds 12 ounces. She loves her solid foods. Thus far she has eaten oatmeal cereal, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots and winter squash. She likes them all except for the rice cereal. Who can blame her that stuff is so bland.

She is such a good baby. She smiles and laughs whenever anyone looks at her or says hello. She knows her name, turning in the direction of whom ever is calling her. She still only rolls from her belly to her back. She has rolled the other way but only a couple of times and not for a while. She talks and coos like crazy. Yesterday I swear she said the first syllable of Doodle's name when she saw him.

She absolutely adores her brother. She lights up when she sees him with a huge smile on her face and giggles bounding out of her mouth like musical notes. She laughs when he makes farting sounds with his lips. Then the two of them laugh together. Seeing them interact makes me so happy that we decided to have a second child. The joy that they bring to each other is palpable. I have a friend whose older son ignored the younger son when he was born and for many months after. Doodle doesn't ignore Pancake nor does he abuse her. He really seems to enjoy having her around. And he thinks of her a lot. When she's not with me he notices right away and asks where she is. When we occasionally look at open houses he will identify which room is hers and it's often the better room (in my opinion).

Pancake doesn't sit up by herself yet. She's making quite a mess of the neck pillow we've been using to prop her up in the booster seat. It is crusted with dried oatmeal and various orange vegetables. Everything she grabs she puts in her mouth. She's getting quite good at that skill. When she wears a dress it usually gets pretty wet from drool quickly.

She still wakes up two to four times a night to eat. I'm going to try to put her in her own room again tonight to see if that makes a difference. She slept right outside our room in Vermont (which we just returned from on Sunday -- more on that trip in another post) and it didn't seem to matter -- she still woke up several times a night.

She's a good baby -- very happy and cheerful, only crying when she absolutely must have something and even then there's a few minutes of whining before she breaks into the full on cry.

Here is a picture from my brother's wedding which was on Saturday (she's with my mom).