Happy Five Months, Claire

Claire is now five months old, and she continues to amuse and surprise us all.

The biggest news is that we've started solids. I decided to skip the cereal (what's the point?), and we went straight to veggies. So Claire had carrots for her first solid meal on Sunday. That first night, she spit most of it right back out and didn't act too happy to be eating it. But yesterday, during her second feeding, she suddenly seemed to figure out why I was putting this weird mushy orange stuff into her mouth—because it's yummy! She promptly got the hang of swallowing and seemed thrilled with herself and her meal. She ate about a quarter of the jar—not bad for her second time out. And, not sure if this is a coincidence (probably not), but last night she slept from 7 p.m. until 7:15 a.m., straight through!

Another noticeable recent development is that Claire has really started vocalizing. She's still not saying any consonants (I'm pretty sure Elsa was by this point), but wow, this kid can definitely make herself heard. She starts with standard-issue baby "ah"ing and "ooh"ing and can work up to full-on shrieking and screeching in no time flat. (Play the video above to sample what we've been listening to for the past two weeks.) She isn't crying—she's just making noise. She most often does this when she sees a fun toy or when someone else is talking to her, so I think it's a definite attempt to communicate. And I can pinpoint the exact moment when this started: At Oktoberfest with Bob's family on Saturday, Sept. 12. I don't know if it was an effort to make herself heard over the loud music or what, but she suddenly started this caterwauling, and she basically hasn't stopped since. Elsa went through a high-pitched shrieking stage too, but that was when she was quite a bit older. Elsa was about 9 or 10 months old when it started, and it stopped once she was consistently saying some words shortly after she turned 1 year old. When Elsa was five months old, her favorite thing was to blow raspberries—something I know Claire can do, because I've heard it out of her at least once or twice, but so far she does it very infrequently (at least compared to Elsa!).

On other fronts, Claire rolled over from stomach to back completely by herself this morning, making her just one day older than Elsa when she did it. For almost a week, she would roll over when I just nudged her shoulders in the right direction, but today she really did it completely on her own. She's also really getting her knees up underneath herself while she's on her tummy. It's interesting that, physically, Claire is on almost an identical schedule as Elsa, but yet she seems to go about everything just a little differently. When Elsa was struggling to learn how to roll over, she knew what to do with her shoulders, but couldn't figure out her legs. With Claire, it was just the opposite. All legs, but needed help with her shoulders! I guess Elsa is the yin to Claire's yang—they're the same but in different ways, or different in the same ways, or something like that.

Claire also continues to improve on her sitting, getting more steady with each passing day. Yesterday I had her sit facing forward in the stroller for the first time, while we were at the zoo. She absolutely loved it, sitting quietly and just looking around, enjoying the ride, for almost an hour. And she looked so darn cute doing it, since she's still a bit younger than the babies you usually see sitting that way in the stroller.

Other sources of entertainment these days are the exersaucer and the Johnny Jump-Up. She's still not really hopping around, but whenever we put her in there, she actually seems to be trying to take steps and walk. It's hilarious; she looks like she's about to just nonchalantly exit the room. Sometimes she puts out her arms for balance and looks for all the world like she's trying to walk a tightrope.

Happy five-month birthday, little girl. We're not sure what we ever did around here without you.