5 months

Marie is 5 months old!

Milestones:
-Marie finally rolled over from tummy to back yesterday! I know each child is a special snowflake that develops at their own pace and whatnot, and I wasn't terribly concerned about her lack of mobility, but it's a little bit of a relief since it seems like all the other babies her age have been able to roll for a month. Of course, she has yet to repeat the action, so we'll see if it was just a fluke.
-Along the lines of rolling, she'll roll from back to side and she also rotates a little bit during tummy time now.
-She had her first real giggle fest a couple weeks ago, which was basically the most adorable thing I've ever witnessed. She's only repeated it a couple times since then, and we've yet to capture it on video, but just trust me that it's delightful.
-We took her to a briar patch to pick raspberries. Not that she did any berry-picking or even came close to the raspberry (bushes? vines?). 

-We went to the park and put Marie in the baby swing for the first time. She leaned against the front of the seat the whole time. We're still working on the sitting thing.

-She attended her first temple open house. Everyone fawned over her.

-Marie got her first rat's nest in her hair. I suppose that's what happens when you're a baby with long hair and your parents don't exactly brush it every single day. Parenting fail.

Current likes:
Looking at Daddy, standing with support, playing with toys, holding her feet, grabbing my hands and staring at them, listening to music

Current dislikes:
Being left alone in a room while she's awake. Gone are the days where we could put her in the swing and do dishes; now, she wants to be able to see us all the time. Well, almost all the time. She played quite happily in her bouncer in the kitchen for a while before falling asleep today.

Nicknames:
-Lately I've been asking her, "Aren't you just a happy little goose/clam/Gus Gus?" 
-Babycakes

Other odds and ends:

-Marie has a habit of taking her pacifier out of her mouth and playing with it. Sometimes she'll try to put it back in her mouth, but she usually puts the wrong end in and chews on it a little. Other times after she takes it out she'll get mad because she isn't sucking on something anymore. There's an easy solution to this one, kid. . . . 
-We acquired a book of traditional children's literature that I've been reading to Marie. She doesn't look at the pictures much (not that there are very many of them anyway), but she usually smiles and looks entranced as she listens to the fairy tales and the different voices I use for the characters. Success!
-We've been putting her in size 3 diapers at night because she kept soaking through the 2s. Story of our lives. Also, she doesn't have blowouts super regularly, but when she does have one, it seems like she's always wearing white. But of course. And to top it off, her last blowout was in her carseat and her pacifier ended up in a puddle. Shudder.
-We haven't started sleep training but she's gotten into some bad sleeping habits since I've gone back to work. I'll try putting her down to sleep earlier in the evening and she'll wake up an hour or so later and just want to play. So perhaps some sleep training is in order. Recommendations? I will say, though, that she can usually have a 6 hour stretch between feedings, so that's been nice. Not that I've been able to sleep 6 hours, because she takes a while to fall asleep after the last nighttime feed.
-We haven't introduced any solids yet but she's starting to look a little more interested in food. She'll stare us down while we're eating.
-I think this morning she was trying to blow raspberries or buzz her lips together, so that's all sorts of fun.

-Lately I've been singing "Alice the Camel" to her while bouncing her on my knees, and she's usually all smiles. I guess Jacob has gotten a little tired of the song, though, because the last time I finished (with "Alice is a horse!"), he said, "I think she already knows that Alice is a horse, because you've sang that song eight billion times."