Meera Grace 5 Months Old

Today Meera turned five months old. This baby continues to amaze and astound us with her ridiculously extreme happiness. Seriously, it is not normal. She is JUST. SO. DARN. HAPPY. This month has been her most eventful so far, by far. And we've seen her at her worst. But even her worst is just so good. Given that this is our third child, we're in the position of knowing a good thing when we see it. If you know what I mean. Seriously, this girl has got to be the most mellow, low-key, easy-going, HAPPY baby that ever lived. Really. So, big things from Little Miss Meera's 5th month:

• She continues to love, love, love the bath. But this month she took her love of the bath to a whole new level. She discovered the thrill and delight of sucking on washcloths. Man, oh man, does she love it. Loves it.
• Little Miss adores her brothers. She finds Owen, in particular, hysterically funny. He can make her laugh like no one else can. She spends lots of time watching her big bro's and smiling smiling smiling at them just waiting for them to notice her. And then they do notice (or we tell them to notice) and her face just lights up. Her favorite times of day are: 1:00-- when we go to pick up Kyle and Owen from school, and around 3:00-- when all three of them sit at the table while the boys have an afternoon snack. This month she's discovered the boys' hair. Right up there in her list of top favorite things is grabbing a dreadlock and getting it into her mouth. She puts everything into her mouth, but dreadlocks seem to be a special favorite.
• Meera Grace discovered her feet. Currently, if you lay her on her back, at any time, day or night, she'll immediately grab her feet and coo and gurgle in sheer glee. I've gotta say: it is really really just so stinkin' cute.
• Eating has been big this month. She's dabbling in it. She's ambivalent about green beans and applesauce. She's totally into rice and oatmeal (as long as it is mixed with breastmilk, not formula). She's getting the hang of this whole food thing and slowly but surely some is actually getting ingested.
• Braydon continues to feed her one bottle in the middle of the night. This is their special father-daughter bonding time and they both love it. I hate the pumping. But it is worth it to see the results: their awesome bond.
• She finally got sick of the black Bjorn chair. I figure she spent four whole months in it, so she has the right to be sick of it. She won't sit in it anymore. She's moved on to her "pink chair" and is lovin' it! She also is having a rekindled love affair with her little swing chair thingy. And she continues to love the play mat. She's given up the Bjorn chair, but boy does she love the Bjorn carrier. She spends a lot of time in it every day. Happy camper.
• Meera is very interested in our cat Cooper. She can spot him from quite a distance. The boys have trained Cooper well. He now puts up with Little Miss grabbing him so tight that when he finally pulls away from her she's left holding fistfuls of fur (and squealing with delight). Amazingly, Cooper always comes back for more.
• This month Meera travelled to New Hampshire for the third time in her short life. And she travelled to Connecticut for her baptism weekend. She's a trooper, but it finally took a toll on her. She caught her first cold and it wasn't pretty. She was not her happy self. And she had her mama up every 2-3 hours all night long every night for the past couple of weeks. Just when I started to worry that somehow her incredible sleeping skills had been lost forever, she rebounded!-- and the past 48 hours or so have been deliriously wonderful yet again. Last night, for example, she went to bed at 6:00pm (her normal daily bedtime) and woke up at 7:00am with only one feeding (Braydon's bottle) at 1am. {She then goes on to take two naps during the day - each of which is around 2 hours long}. And get this: to put her to sleep we simply do our little ritual (change her diaper, read her a little baby book, lay her down in her crib, then walk out), and within a few minutes she's sound asleep. I know, I know, it is embarrassingly good. Believe me, we appreciate it. Like I said, this is our third. Just read between the lines... we know we've got it good with this one!
• Meera had her well-baby visit with our pediatrician one week ago. She weighs almost 17 pounds. She is 26 1/2 inches long. Her head circumference is 17". She is in the top 1% for height, and the top 5% for weight. She's a big healthy girl.

Lots of pictures here and more below.