Five Months Old

Elsa turned five months old today, and she celebrated the occasion by rolling over for the very first time yesterday! Each day last week, she seemed to get closer and closer, and then yesterday, while Bob, Belle, and I all watched, she managed to do it on her own, from tummy to back. When she finally tipped from her side to her back after several minutes of trying, Bob and I both suddenly started yelling and jumping up and down, which of course freaked her out and she started screaming. But other than that she seemed pleased with her accomplishment. : ) And I can't even describe how proud I felt—for one thing, I think this has been the most challenging skill she's faced so far. Also, I'd been trying to coach her how do it for the past week, so I felt like we had actually kind of worked together on this. And yet another reason I felt proud: Being an extremely late walker myself, I'm sure I was equally slow at other physical things like sitting and rolling over, so it already seems like Elsa is skilled in an area I wasn't. And isn't that one of the things every parent hopes for: That your child will excel at the things you didn't? (Well, and that she'll ALSO excel at everything I DID do well, too—i.e., she'll be good at everything she ever tries!)


As for bedtime, Elsa is still going to sleep much better these days, but over the weekend she suddenly decided that waking up at 4:30 a.m. each morning might be fun for the whole family. We're currently trying to convince her otherwise. When playing, her favorite game now is to get a very good grip on one of her toys and slam it repeatedly down onto the floor, the Exersaucer, my arm, etc. She also gets a huge kick out of watching me dance (but then again, who doesn't?). And although we haven't weighed her, I'm pretty sure she is continuing to gain weight like the healthy robust girl that she is—in fact, while out running errands today, it occurred to me that she is rapidly reaching the limit for me carrying her around in her carseat. That was pretty obvious when just going in and out of the post office winded me. So I guess running errands is about to get a whole lot more difficult. Fortunately, she's doing so well with her sitting, I'm sure she'll be able to ride in shopping carts the big-girl way within just a few weeks!