Faith turns 5 months!

I can't believe my little girl is now 5 months old. That's such a short time yet so long ago that she was born. I am amazed at all that she has accomplished in just the last 2 months. She is still learning how to really be coordinated when holding things up to her mouth but every day she gets better at it. 

Her new favorite person is her dad right now. He of course loves it when I say that. She doesn't hardly see him that much so I think that has a lot to do with it. However he can just look at her and say "hi" and she is all smiles. I do the same thing a minute later and she just stares at me like she is thinking, "what do you want, mom?" I love that she knows her daddy though. It makes me happy. She has giggled a few times for me but I usually can't get her to repeat it a second time. The other day Jeff was playing and bouncing her and she giggled a few times in a row! I must admit I was jealous a little bit. Maybe she has too much mommy time. I guess I should take off and enjoy some "me" time so I become the new favorite person to her.

Her hair has started to really grow and thicken up. Sometimes I think she is about to have bangs. :) She loves to grab her toes. She does it all the time and that's how she moves herself around and rotates 180 degrees in a few minutes when she is lying on her back on the floor. I left the room for a few minutes and her head was on the right side and when I came back that's where her feet were. Silly girl!

She constantly is piling air up in her mouth and then blows it out to make almost a "farting" noise as it escapes. I call it blowing bubbles even though only a few times has bubbles come out of her mouth when she does that. Its soooo cute!! Sometimes when I try and put her down for a nap she will decide she doesn't want to go down and do that. A week ago I tried putting her down a half hour early and we are rocking in the dark (just a little light from the hallway) and all of a sudden I hear the bubble making sound and can feel air on my face. She was doing it again. I just looked at her in what little light I could and she was smiling at me. It was so cute I couldn't be mad at her for not going to sleep. She ended up not going to bed until 9pm.

My baby now sleeps through the night. I love it! She still wakes up an hour after I put her down which annoys me slightly but I guess its better that she does that than wakes up 5 hours later to wake me up. I just give her another bottle and she is back in bed. She is sleeping 12 hours total and I love that! So she is down at 7:30 at night and then up at 7:30 in the morning. I can't handle a 6am baby. That would be a little much for me and I get kind of grumpy when she does wake up early if I happen to put her to bed early.

My sister-in-law, Katie made her these headbands. I think they look amazingly cute!

I think they look amazingly cute! On another sleep note, I stopped putting Faith in a swaddle weeks ago. I was sooo beyond thankful for that because I hated that thing. I know it works and keeps her from the startle reflexes but I always felt like I was putting her in a baby straight jacket. So the last few weeks I would just cuddle her and then lay her down and wrap a blanket around her to keep her arms from flailing. However the last few days I stopped wrapping the blanket around her and she has still been sleeping through the night. Hooray! Tonight I went in to check on her a few hours after she had been down and both her hands were above her head. She had even moved her hand like she was circling her head. So cute! I just love babies when they sleep. They are so peaceful!

Faith has really showed how much she loves her Baby Einstein shows. I do limit them but she gets so excited. It first starts when the "Disney" music begins and she sees Tinkerbell bring on the words of Disney. I think its because she knows its about to begin. I could be holding her away from the TV so she can't see it but if she hears that Disney music she will search for it.

Its then followed by another big smile of excitement when the caterpillar crawls onto the screen. I sometimes rewind it so that I can see it again because it makes me happy to see her so excited!

This is a video of Faith being a "super baby" with her dad. 

And here is the excited face as the Baby Einstein caterpillar comes onto the screen. I bet you watched it more than once! :)

Faith is grabbing her toes and blowing air from her mouth in this one.

Oh, and something exciting happened today (March 23rd), Faith rolled over for the first time by herself without any help from me!!!! I was sooo excited to have witnessed it. I tried to get it on video but she wouldn't do it again. The exciting thing is that I have been taking Faith to the chiropractor to be adjusted. The doctor is working on making sure she is realigned so that it can stop her excessive spit up and that she doesn't poop. I've heard that chiropractic care can help fix these problems but never took her in until now. After the first visit that day Faith could lay on her tummy for 4 times as long as she used to. Before she would cry after a minute or two and put her head down into the blanket. She never reached for toys or anything. I thought it was because she just didn't like being on her tummy but now I know differently. It was because her back was out. Actually she was out in 3 different places. In her neck (right behind her ear lobes) she was out and it was pulling her head to the right. In the middle of the back she would arch away from the Doc when he would just lightly touch their with some pressure. He adjusted that and told me that it was really tight there and that's linked to the spit up region so it could be why she is so excessively spitting/throwing up all the time. Then both her hips were out so he adjusted those and advised me that those can also be linked to the colon region. So now that we are working on realigning the body, those nerves can now communicate correctly. However I take her in for a total of 10 visits ( 3x a week) to be readjusted so that he can loosen up those areas that are tight and hopefully by the end she will be pooping on her own and not spitting up. So far she has pooped 2 days in a row (only once) but I'll take what I can get. Her spit up is still occurring but it seems to have lessened a bit. I am hopeful since the other MD doctors don't seem to be able to tell me anything other than "wait it out". I must admit I love that I don't always listen to what ever doctor tells me. I so believe in natural methods and not a bunch of pills and surgeries (not that they aren't needed sometimes) but try alternative methods first.

Anyway, I love being a mom and Faith is the greatest daughter I could ever ask for!