Dear Elisabeth,

Before I go any farther, let me just acknowledge that I missed writing you a four-month letter. You turned four months old while we were in the US and it was in the midst of a lot of busyness, and things didn’t really calm down much after we got home. Besides I wrote your last letter at 3 1/2 months old, so at least it’s a consistent time period between updates. In any case…

Earlier last week you turned five months old. You weighed in at 14 lb 2 oz – still right on the 25th percentile line. It’s a little hard to believe that you are that small for your age because you are such a little chub. You certainly don’t look small, even compared to the other babies in our NCT group who are the same age as you. As far as I am concerned, you are a perfectly proportioned baby.

Besides “gorgeous”, the words that people use most often to describe you are “alert”, “switched-on” and “intelligent”. You are incredibly curious, and you are constantly looking around you, taking everything in. You can study people with startling intensity. (You could easily win a staring contest!) Your curiosity means that you get bored very quickly, however, making you a rather high maintenance baby. I can’t just put you down and expect that you’ll be happy for 1/2 hour on your own. Often after just two minutes you are howling for a change of scene. You’re happier in your bouncy seat than lying on your back since it lets you look around more. But even there you get bored after ten minutes or so.

Your curiosity extends to other babies now. Most of the time you delightedly smile and chat to the “baby in the mirror”. (Sometimes you just can’t be bothered – there are too many other interesting things around to look at.) You also smile and reach towards the other babies in our NCT group.

You do really enjoy being outside and still love going for rides in your buggy. Unlike the first few months of your life, though, you spend most of the time in the buggy awake  now, studying what’s going on around you. You like books, although you have limited patience for sitting and reading. And you’re getting more into playing with toys although you often get frustrated when you can’t get them in your mouth or when they fall out of reach. Then you throw mini “tantrums” — you throw yourself backwards and start howling because you can’t get what you want. I’m looking forward to you being able to sit up by yourself and being just a little bit mobile so you can get to your toys yourself.

You still don’t really like being on your tummy, but you love standing up and your leg strength is quite impressive. You can push yourself up to standing from a crouching position without any help and will sometimes stand for a few seconds with help for balance but no real support. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if you skipped crawling and went right to walking.

Your sleeping is still all over the place. While we were in the US in March and the beginning of April you were consistently sleeping 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours in a row, waking up for a feed, then sleeping another 2-3. Since we gotten back you’ve had more nights of waking up two or three times during the night which may be because of teething or just settling back in. The last couple of nights you’ve gone back to sleeping 8-9 hours before having a feed, then down for another 2-3, though, so I’m hoping that will continue for a while. Your daytime naps are pretty erratic too. Most of your naps are 30-45 minutes long, but every now and then you’ll take a long nap — up to three hours in a row — during the day. You’ve had a bad cold for the last couple of days and have been sleeping lots (not so much in your bed, though — mostly on your daddy or me or on the sofa). Which is fine with me!

Now that you have had a couple of bad colds and some spells of teething pain, I’m finding out how hard it is for parents to see their kids in pain or struggling. I just want to you be healthy and happy and okay!

You are generally a happy, delightful little girl. When your daddy or I go to get you out of bed in the morning, you give us big smiles which just melt our hearts every time. You can be pretty talkative — especially when you are getting your nappy changed — and you love it when we echo your sounds. You love it when I sing to you, and some of your favourite songs are “Old MacDonald” and “Skip To My Lou” (to which I add a verse “Elisabeth Soraya Clare, won’t you be my darling”). I think that sometimes you even “sing” too. You have such a sweet voice, and we love hearing it!

You are the light of my life sweetheart. I can’t imagine life without you!

Elisabeth at five months