The Big 5 (Months)

Quinn is five months old today!

She is getting to be such a big girl. She sits in her highchair and eats rice cereal,


can hold her bottle by herself,


and is getting closer every day to being able to sit up on her own.



She also got just her thumb in her mouth for the first time today.

We actually had a bit of an adventure today. Amy, Quinn, and I went to the cafe down the street this morning, Amy and I each assuming that the other one had keys with them. We got back to our building, and while our kind neighbor did let us into the building, we found that we had left the door to our apartment locked as well! Fortunately, Amy had her purse, which contained her cell phone and SmartTrip card for the Metro, as well as her wallet. So, we called Tim, who sent emails to the people who were expecting to see me at noon (this was around 11:30). We then took the Metro down to Tim's office, where we got his keys. We ended up taking the bus home, which gave us an interesting tour of some different parts of the city, including taking us through the Chinatown gate.

Quinn, who was in the BabyBjorn (front carrier) this whole time, fell asleep as we were walking to the bus stop and woke up shortly before we got off the bus -- an interlude much shorter and later than her usual morning nap, so I'm anticipating an early bedtime tonight.

Quinea Pig

Quinn participated in her first experiment yesterday. (As a subject; all babies are mini-scientists who are running experiments all the time as they figure out how the world works.)

She was in a study at the linguistics lab, one of three labs at the University of Maryland that do infant studies. I held her on my lap and had a visor over my eyes so I couldn't see the large screen TV she was looking at. Apparently, the screen was split in two, with different versions of a woman's face on either side. One was saying "ooo," the other was saying "eee." For the first half of the time, the woman's voice saying "ee. ee. ee." was played. For the second half, it said "oo. oo. oo."

A video camera recorded where Quinn was looking when this was going on. Apparently, she (like other babies who are 4 months old) looks more at the face whose mouth matches the sound. Anyway, it was pretty fun, and I always like doing my part to advance the cause of science.

Firsts for Quinn

Quinn has had some exciting firsts in the past week or so. She had her first time in the pool last Sunday.

The previous day, she got her foot in her mouth all by herself for the first time! Tim caught this new skill on camera on Wednesday:



And just yesterday, we fed her her first "solid food." Solid food, for babies, means a lot of mush before they graduate to anything more substantial. But, she found rice cereal pretty agreeable. We felt that she was ready because she's been watching us intently while we eat, and is now grabbing for adult food at the table.



We've been feeling like she' has gotten really big: at the doctor for her 4-month checkup, she was 16 1/2 lbs and 24 1/4 inches long. But sitting her in the highchair sure made her look little again!