This Little Piggy

Inching up on the half year mark, Maddex is five months old!  By baby standards, I'd say she's accomplished quite a lot this past month:

-It goes without saying, but this girl is a certifiable C.H.U.N.K.  She's always been thick, but she has plumped up significantly since last month.  Probably due to the fact that after a 7 week nursing strike (she completely rejected me and I had to pump for every feeding, a 40+ minute process) I finally threw in the towel and started her on poison formula.

-Eating baby food.  Still very messy, but I'm confident she'll grow out of it in about 3 years.

-Sleeping through the night (this is only about a week in, but I'm gonna go ahead and call it).  She goes to bed at 7:30, I wake her up to feed her before I go to bed (usually midnightish) and she doesn't wake up until 7:30-8 in the morning.  Personally, this is my favorite of her triumphs.

-Sitting.  She's been teetering around like a weeble wobble for about 2 weeks now, but this past week was her big break.  I had forgotten how fast they catch on.  She went from 20 seconds without falling over and then the next day *BAM*  3 minutes.  She's consistent now with being able to stay up no problem.  When she gets bored and wants to roll around the room, she'll make herself fall over.  Those wheels are starting to turn...

-Communicating.  I never know when she wakes up anymore.  She won't cry.  It isn't until I hear her babbling to herself that I realize she's awake.  How long was she silently laying there before she decided to start making noises?  She's figured out how to coo, growl (the kids' favorite, they call her baby jaguar), squeal (loudly!), blow raspberries, and as of three days ago say ba-ba-ba.  This was only after several minutes of smacking her gums like an old granny and I think the sound accidentally came out.  Now she thinks she's hot to trot by throwing the ba in there with it.

-Understanding.  Call me crazy, but there's some signs of intelligence going on here!  She responds (and by respond I mean smile and flail her arms around) to the words milk and bath.  When I ask her, "Maddex do you want milk/to take a bath?"  She gets all excited.  I think she's border lining on 'kick' (when we say kick, she kicks), but I'm not ready to make it official just yet.

-Toe sucking.  I've been expecting this one.  One of the few things I had NOT forgotten about.  I've been looking forward to the day when she finally realized that big toe was a built in pacifier.

I know how you feel, I want to just eat her up too...