5 Months!

This smiley girl is 5 months old!!  She is such a happy and content baby.  She loves to watch her brother and sister and loves to play with toys.  She still loves her swing.  She likes a binky, but can't keep it in her mouth, so she usually ends up sucking her left thumb in the middle of her naps or the night.  She loves chewing on everything and found her toes this month!  She has to make sure they're still there every few minutes.  I'm amazed at the way her hip moves to put her toes in her mouth!  She seriously just folds in half!  She usually doesn't get much of a morning nap (3rd kid probs), so she sleeps all afternoon and is asleep for the night pretty early. It's a late night if she makes it to 7!  So, she also wakes up pretty early.... and it's a treat if she sleeps until 7!  She still wakes up to eat twice in the middle of the night, but mostly goes right back to sleep.  I love the way she smiles when I go in to get her from her nap.  It's such a special little smile and we just love her so much!!

Her stats:

13 lb 9 oz (25th percentile)

23 1/2" (<5th p="" percentile="">

3-6 mo clothes (finally!)

Size 2 diapers

She's my most petite baby... by far!

Awesome Animals!

We went to the zoo this week and maybe it's just the "mom" in me, but it was so sweet to see the Momma Orangutan breastfeeding her little baby.  Her baby is about the same age as Elizabeth and it was so funny to see them interact in the same ways I interact with my babies.  She played with her, she walked her over to a shady corner to sit and nurse, she carried the baby's favorite blanket with her foot when she walked across the enclosure.  When there got to be too many people next to her window, she got up and found a quiet spot for the baby to nap.  She never put the baby down... the little orangutan just gripped onto her hair and held on as they walked around!  It just got me thinking about how special it is to be a momma... whether your a human, orangutan... or a kangaroo....

Notice the one on the right (of the kangaroo pic)?  Look at how big her pouch is!  I am not even kidding when I say she had a teenager in there!  I wasn't fast enough with the camera, but the legs were sticking straight out of her pouch!  Earlier that day, I had a joey that was way too big in my pouch!  Ruthie wanted to ride in the ergobaby.  I don't like to put it on my back because the strap shows off my squishy tummy, so I put her in the front.  This was way harder than it looked!  Her hair was all in my mouth and I couldn't see past her gigantic head!  The last time I had her in the carrier, she was so much smaller!  Where did my baby go??  Even if she's too big for my pouch, I love any time I get cuddles from this crazy girl!

Also, George got a chapter book for Easter and every night we have read a chapter about amazing animal rescues!  So, I'm still crazy hormonal and cry over ridiculous stuff... let's just get that out of the way.  BUT one of the rescue stories made me tear up... maybe because it hit close to home?  A little boy climbed over the rail and fell into the gorilla enclosure where something like 7 gorillas lived!  He was knocked out (which probably helped because he wasn't crying).  A momma gorilla with her own baby on her back protected the little boy from the other gorillas and took the little boy to the zookeeper's door.  She for real carried the unconscious little boy across the enclosure, keeping all the other gorillas away.  They explained that there are a few different theories of why she did that.  One theory is that the zookeepers trained the gorillas to bring anything that fell into the enclosure to the door and they got a treat... that way they didn't try to eat foreign objects.  Another theory (and the one I prefer) is that her maternal instinct kicked in and she wanted to help the little boy.  This particular gorilla had actually been raised by humans... her own mom couldn't make enough milk for her and she was failing to thrive, so she was taken away and raised by zookeepers.  She eventually was old enough to live with gorillas. Because gorillas learn how to be mothers from their moms, the zookeepers were really nervous when she got pregnant.  They gave her a doll and made her carry it everywhere.  When she was carrying it, she got a treat.  If she put it down--no treat!  Finally when it was time to have her baby, she was an awesome mom!  I like to think that it was her maternal instinct that lead her to save that kid!  Anway, ridiculous, I know... but I cried! (And it hit close to home not because G ever climbed into an enclosure, but because he's a wild kid and I am constantly scanning for ways that he could fall in!  But also because G once dropped his binky in with the bears.  Ask him about it sometime... if you have 1/2 hour for the story...!)

It's so special to see other animals have the same love and compassion for their babies that I feel... and it gives me warm fuzzies.

April (So Far)

Here's our April, in pictures (probably out of order):

The EB was tooooo good to us!

Medicines and charts and syringes.... 

We saw the EB at Bass Pro Shop (for free.. and the line was only about 15 minutes)

Ruthie has started requesting bottles lately... which is weird because she never took a bottle as a baby...

Ruthie painting eggs.  She likes to mix colors.

George painting eggs.  He does not like to mix colors.

We had a family date night at Steak n Shake and G was obsessed with this hat!

This was at Bass Pro Shop.  George was driving this little... off road... thing..?

Daddy and Ruthie decorated Elizabeth

Ruthie is a crazy old lady.  Fancy earrings and shawl.. and if you look at her closely, you will see my concealer on her cheeks.

Elizabeth is getting squirmy and I found her sideways and then up-side-down on her play mat!

I hosted a Jamberry Nails party and got lots of free stuff... and some cheap stuff.  My nails are going to look great all year!

I found these pictures on my phone from when George must have had it in the back seat.  It's funny to see a car ride from his perspective.  There were about 50 pictures!

March!

I was going to write about March, but then I realized that I have already written about the fun stuff.  The rest of the month was all doctor's appointments (some planned, some not) and antibiotics.  All 3 kids had ear infections and George even spent a late night in the ER.  Luckily, Steve was home when George woke up with a fever of 105* at 11pm!  Double ear infection... but this actually wasn't diagnosed until we went to the doc the next morning.  By April 1, George was on his 3rd round, Elizabeth was on her 2nd round, and Ruthie was on her 1st round of antibiotics.  I'm not even kidding.  I made a chart to keep it straight!  Here are some pics from the end of the month.  Enjoy!