5 months

Hi Sweet Pea, my wee Hope. You are five months old today. Really, although it is cliche, it seems like just last week that you were born. My memories of your birth, my feelings about it, my total elation, joy, love, are still that fresh.

But here we are five months on. Last week you learned to roll over and you do it in the blink of an eye now as though it was some kind of Jedi move designed to confuse and surprise your enemies. I can see that you're going to be an early crawler. When you are on your tummy you curl your toes under and try and inch forward. Your physicality has also spilled over to the jolly jumper. After only two goes at it, you mastered it. Yesterday you really showed your skills. When I bent down to play with you, you looked at me like: Mummy, look what I'm doing! I'm so good at this!

You've really mastered feeding lately too, and sleeping it seems. Two nights ago you slept through the night, something Emily didn't do until she was 14 months old. I've got to say, I really appreciate you doing that so soon. Going to sleep is another story - you want the boob all the way. I don't mind too much really, it is a chance for us to have another quiet moment just the two of us and that just doesn't happen often enough.

Your personality continues to amaze me. You are silly, happy, you laugh easily and have smiles for everyone. I drag you to Emily's activities and you comply with very little fussing. You seem to love to watch everything going on around you. Being out of the house almost every morning though means your morning naps have turned into 15 minute cat naps. But, it doesn't seem to bother you.

Sometimes I feel bad that I drag you around so many places. As a result, we don't have a well established morning routine. For another baby, this might be a problem, but so far you take it in a stride. I try to assuage my guilt by telling myself that I'm exposing you to lots of new experiences. I hope you agree with me someday.

I already think about having to go back to work and I get choked up about it. I'm still thinking about ways to avoid that but haven't come up with the right answer yet. Please know that I will spend the rest of my maternity leave working on this. If I can't find an answer, know that I wanted to more than anything in the world.

Your not-so-little body gets cuter all the time. Your eyes are still a brilliant blue, your hair seems to be coming in blond although you have a big tuft of dark baby hair left at the nape of your neck and like a toupee on the top of your head. I love to smell your skin and hair.

You grab the sides of my face and peer into my eyes a lot now. I like to think that you are telling me that you love me and thanks for everything so far, Mummy. You are so much more than welcome, my sweet pea.