From Tiny Cells to Singing

We're about to hit five months! Our Baby Girl is about to be FIVE MONTHS OLD. Just over a year ago she was a microscopic group of cells in a freezer. Now she's singing at the dinner table.[vimeo 265259762 w=640 h=360]How is she different now at five months than at 4, 3, 2 or 1?Well, now she has hair. You can't see it in photos or from a distance. She still has most of the brown hair she was born with, but that brown hair has spread out as her head has grown so that now she is sporting that baby Winston Churchill look. But when you hold her in your arms, you seen the fine wisps of blonde hair. And better, you feel them against your lips when you kiss the top of her head.At five months you can sit with her at the dinner table when you're out with friends. She can't sit up yet, but she can hold her self up in your lap, with one of your arms wrapped around her belly. She puts her hands on the table. She reaches for french fries and spoons. Yesterday she tried to grab my prosecco.At five months, she studies the pictures in the books we read to her. I like to sit in the rocking chair in the nursery with her in my lap. I hold the books in front of her. I let her grab at the board books but hold the fragile paper ones just out of reach. She studies them, sometimes with amazing attention, her hands at her mouth holding her pacifier in place. She studies the pictures in a book given to her by my mother - Shark Lady - all the way through to the last page, so I'm calling that one her favorite for now.At five months, she smiles every time she sees me. She's not a big smiler. She doesn't smile at everyone. She studies them, definitely, but the smiles aren't overflowing. I'm not bothered so much that she doesn't smile a lot. But lately, she smiles every time she sees me. And those smiles feel like winning a little lottery over and over again. Those smiles are like a love potion shot straight to the heart.At five months she has found all the screens in the house. They are magnetic - the tv, our phones, our computers. She recognizes them. I have stopped watching International House Hunters during bottle time. We listen to podcasts instead.At five months I feel much, much more calm (I have not always been calm in these five months). Our baby girl is growing. She laughs, like during our little Betty Who dance party we had with my sister. We have a rhythm of naps and bottles and bedtime rituals. In the morning we all cuddle in bed, so grateful to be together.More than anything right now, I'm simply trying to stay awake to this precious, precious time. I'm intentionally enjoying all of it. My mom talks often to me about her most recent memories parenting a baby, memories with my littlest sister who is 12 years younger than me. She says, "People would tell me that I shouldn't hold her too much, that it would mess her up. But I had already raised three babies, and this one was a surprise, and if she wanted to be held, I was just going to hold her. I didn't care. I knew then how fast those baby years go." My baby sister is now 21.At it again with the wisdom, my mom. And so, I'm just going to hold our sweet one and all of the wonderful things that surround her beautiful little soul.Happy Five Months, Baby Girl!