One of the fun new things that my daughter started doing at 10 months old was swaying side-to-side whenever she heard music playing- either someone singing it to her or hearing it on the radio/tv. Sadly, she even did this to the theme music of the Wendy Williams Show. Haha. Since I love music so much, it’s great to see her react to it. I was playing Bulls on Parade by Rage Against The Machine in the the living room one day, and she actually surprised me when she started rocking back & forth to it. She’s also done this to Toxicity from System of a Down.

My daughter now knows the word “kiss” and whenever I say, “give kisses” she’ll give a kiss, which basically looks like she’s trying to eat your cheek. It’s adorable. She also can point and wave, and when she points at you she does this really serious look like you’re in trouble and she’s pointing at you to scold you.  I’m very happy to say that she’s finally starting to crawl, well kind of. She started “army crawling,” by crawling with her stomach on the ground. Hey, it gets her from point A to point B at least. I’m still blaming it on her huge size, being in the 95th percentile for height and weight. The girl has a belly dragging her down!

She had her first case of being sick–during the week of Christmas. (Or course, you know, when everyone is closed for the holidays.) She was running a fever, so I kept an eye on her, but she was eating and acting totally fine. But then in the early evening  her fever went up to 102.2 and she got really quiet (which is unlike her), so I gave her some Infant’s Tylenol and kept checking her temperature to make sure it went down, which it did. I was so scared though because I had no clue what “too high” is for a baby, plus her normal temperature is lower than the average, so 102.2 was probably more like a 102.9. She cried a lot and was really tired so we put her to bed early. The next day (Christmas Day), she had a low fever of 100.5, but I gave her some Tylenol again because we were going to my mom’s house, and I didn’t want the baby to feel too awful. Well, 3 hours later she was perfectly fine and her fever went away and she became perky and really playful. I was glad her mystery fever only lasted 2-3 days. The next day I noticed she had a rash all over her neck, back, and chest. It looked like small red circles everywhere and when you pressed her red skin it became white for a second. She was acting normal and the rash didn’t seem to itch or bother her, so I checked the internet to do a little searching first, instead of calling the doctor. After researching, I’m pretty sure she had Roseola, which is also known as Sixth Disease. Apparently you are just supposed to wait it out, so I’m happy she didn’t have to get any prescriptions. The rash lasted 3 days, and then it disappeared. I think once you get it you aren’t supposed to get it again, so that’s one illness out of the way!

Even though I was given the ‘ok’ from the pediatrician to start my daughter on rice cereal at 4 months old, I didn’t start her on it until she was 5 1/2 months old. I didn’t want to rush things and I read a lot of information that said you should actually wait until they’re 6 months old. I knew she was ready because whenever I ate my own cereal in the morning she would stare me down and open & close her mouth like a fish. I’ve heard that the first time you try to give your baby solids, expect it to go bad, so I braced myself for the tight lips, the crying, and the pushing away. Surprisingly, she LOVED it. She gave me a big smile on the very first spoonful, and she ate the entire serving. Finally, something that went nice and easy for me. She’s definitely a good eater, just like her mama. Only instead of cheesecake, chocolate, and ice cream, she likes to dive into sweet potatoes, peas, even prunes. I still haven’t found anything she doesn’t like. Actually, I once tried to give her a spoonful of the jarred Beef & Broth, and she made the biggest grimace ever. I tasted the stuff and I didn’t blame her. It looked and tasted like cat food so I threw it out. She prefers my homemade Turkey Sloppy Joe’s anyway (I have a great recipe btw..if you ever want it just email/leave me a comment).

At the end of 5 months she finally started to roll over from belly to back, to the right. Other kids were rolling in both directions and their parents loved to tell me about it and ask about my daughter’s progress. As a first time mom, it really is hard not to compare your kids to other kids because you want to know what “normal” is, whatever that means, so I did my best to fight the urge. I think my favorite part about 5 months old was that she finally started to sleep longer stretches at night, and I only had to nurse her once through the night, usually around 2:00 a.m. This gave her a 5 hour stretch of sleeping since she usually went to bed at 9:00 p.m., and I’m told that 5 hours is considered “sleeping through the night” (STTN) for a baby. It is amazing what sleep can do for you when you haven’t had it in sooo long.

As for music, my husband and I constantly would make up songs for her. He would write his own songs and play them on the guitar for her, usually acoustic, and I would usually make up little jingles on the spot. She really loved to hear “her” songs, as in the songs we made up that have her name in the song. Whenever she would hear them she’d get really excited and if she was in her bouncy chair she’d start rocking it like crazy. She was now in a period where she was crying less so I didn’t have to resort to singing constantly to calm her, but I still did anyway. I tried out some Jeff Buckley on her for the first time, by starting with “Hallelujah” (of course). She got really quiet and stared at me during most of the song. Then I played “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and sang along with it to her (Damn, I love this song). I actually got a smile out of her during it; can you blame her? Haha. Beautiful song. Ah, Jeff. R.I.P. Whenever I would drive anywhere with her I would carefully select a cd to play for her. I usually stuck with softer, “art rock,” but every now and then I’d throw in some Rage Against The Machine. She didn’t seem to react to that either way. I’m curious to see what her music preferences will be as a toddler and if she really will like alternative rock as much as nursery rhymes. I shall have to wait and see.