Gemma is 5 months old!

Gemma is 5 months old today! She has brought a lot of laughter and smiles to our house this month as her little personality emerges!

Gemma is growing up so fast! He still fits into a few 6-9 month clothes and we wear mostly 9-12 month. However she does have a handful of 12-18 month clothes that fit. Keeping up with what fits the three growing kids at our house is a full time job these days. The box of clothes Gemma has now outgrown is quite impressive.

I'm still squeezing her into our last bag of size 2 diapers - which means extra laundry this week. The too small diapers don't hold as we'll as I know the size threes will.

Gemma is getting very close to being fully mobile. She is able to scoot a little and with great effort. She can make forward progress, but it still requires a great deal of effort on her part. She easily spins herself around on her belly (all the better to spread spit up around the place) to reach different toys and fun things like papers left on the ground. Daily I look around with growing concern about her safety...and remind those big kids to pick up the pieces that are small enough to fit in the baby's mouth.

Gemma is loving sitting up and has become quite stable. She loves to look at books and play with toys in this position as well as keep her eye on what the big kids are up to.

Gemma loves chewing on everything in sight. We will be starting solids in about 4 weeks- she works hard any time we're holding her to get food into her mouth, it will be fun to see how she actually likes it.

Gemma loves books and stuffed animals- particularly anything that has a tag on it. Why? No idea. She will work and work to spin a toy around to find the tag to chew upon.

In general, Gemma is a very happy girl and rolls with the craziness if our day to day life. She is full if smiles and giggles for everyone as long as you give her some time to warm up. Catch her by surprise or hold her too soon and there will be tears aplenty. Nothing that a few minutes with her mama can't fix. We recently discovered she hates being alone while she is awake. Apparently, she is surrounded by people most if the time and when she is alone, she gets a little sad. She and I were home alone and I stepped into the laundry room. Gemma squawked and I peeked around the corner. I went back to switching clothes over and she squawked again and then started to cry. As long as I am in sight? We are all good!



And lastly, I might actually cry when this hat doesn't fit her anymore.