Nora's 5 Months Old!

Our little lady turned five months old today!

This month has gone by faster than any of the ones before it.  It seems like just yesterday I was snapping her 4 month photos on Valentine's Day!  But when I reflect back on this month, she has really changed a lot in this short time.  Among the things that stand out for me this month are:
-She rolled over! but still doesn't do it with any regularity.
-She found her feet, which have quickly become her favorite toy.  They're always within reach!
-She is much more attentive to everything that's going on.  She looks at people when they speak to her, she rotates her whole body to watch Oscar walk around the room, and she cranes her neck up to look at you when she's sitting on your lap.  (I included the picture at left to show she does, indeed, have a neck!)
-She's grabbing at everything!  If it's within her reach, she's going to get her hands on it.  Our favorite is when she reaches out to touch Oscar.  She's developing better depth perception and getting much more coordinated with her hand movements, too, which you can see in this quick video--

The most major change is that she gets so happy these days.  She still has a somewhat difficult temperament in the sense that she requires almost constant attention to keep her content, especially if naptime or feeding time are approaching.  But when she is content, she's so cheerful.  We used to work really hard to try to get her to smile, and now she smiles almost every chance she gets.  We get plenty of giggles these days, too, and earlier this evening Billy had her laughing harder than she ever has before.  This change also helps us recognize that we are starting to come into our own as parents.  In retrospect, we've always been pretty good at figuring out what she wants, but when she was unable to show very many positive emotions, it was hard to recognize our successes and much easier to get discouraged.  As she continues to develop, her sleeping habits continue to improve, and she is more and more able to interact with us, we can see that we are doing a good job helping her get a feel for the world around her and learn how to live in it.

As we gear up for Nora's first St. Patrick's Day, we can't help feeling like we're pretty lucky already.  If you look closely, you can see that she's sporting the shamrock pants my mom got her.  Mom's visiting us next week and we can't wait to see her!