Our little tadpole

Right now, Haven is about five and a half months old. It's so crazy to think how much time has passed since she was born. She has made some physical developments, the biggest being her ability to roll over. The health sister (Norwegian assistant for babies and mothers of babies) was always asking at our appointments if she had rolled over yet, and we always answered no. I was starting to wonder if Haven was behind in some way, but the health sister assured us she was not.

Then a few weeks ago, we bought her a baby gym at IKEA to play with while she on the floor and immediately she started rolling over onto her stomach. In fact, she's even rolled over several times to reach me on the floor. We wish she would learn to use her arms better (the whole point of the baby gym) because she could be a crawling fool, although I'll admit the house is not quite ready for a crawler.

She's also getting better in her walker. We gave her a few minutes in her walker every day only because she liked it so much, despite her not being quite old enough to use it. Now she's getting better at scooting herself from room to room, hunting for anything at her level that she can put in her mouth.

Her favorite spots are the kitchen towels hanging from the oven door handle and the strainers and bread bags on the kitchen island shelves. She hasn't quite coordinated the action of putting one foot in front of the other to move about, but that's probably a good thing. We've still got a lot to do around the house before we're ready for that!

She sleeps remarkably little, and still sleeps in bed with us. She just will not sleep for long periods of time during the day and will not retire for the evening unless one of us does too. So she's going to bed around 11:00 every night and waking up shortly after us every morning at about 8:30. She'll stay up for a little bit until she's hungry, then she'll nurse before going back to sleep for maybe an hour. The rest of her naps during the day are usually no longer than 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes tops. Thomas insists this is my influence since I hate going to bed too.

She also likes to be held all the time. I think part of it is she likes having the vantage point she does when she's being held. She doesn't seem to like to entertain herself very often, but it could be she's not old enough to do that yet. I know I was always perfectly happy entertaining myself for hours on end. Sometimes she cries to be held, only to writhe out of our grasp; we put her down where she promptly screams bloody murder. It's like she wants us to wrestle with her or something. She's a mystery!

She's still very much committed to sucking her thumb. It seems as though that time period after she outgrew her first pacifiers before we bought her some bigger ones was too long. She no longer seems interested in a pacifier. I guess I understand; sucking your thumb does sound more appealing than sucking on plastic. Of course, I was a thumb-sucker myself.

She's gotten much more vocal these past few weeks as well. She makes these strange prolonged grunts that are hard to describe. She takes a breath and releases it slowly, while making a sound in the back of her throat. It's almost like the sound I imagine angry characters are making in comic strips when their brows are furrowed and there are dark clouds over their heads. I wouldn't say she only makes the sound when angry though. It's more of a "pay attention to me!" sound. She also makes the high-pitched sighs that are so characteristic of babies.

She has discovered her lips are great noisemakers and she will blow raspberries and make tons of raspberry-esque sounds with her lips and tongue for long periods of time. One time when I was changing her diaper, I leaned over and blew against her stomach, then she responded by blowing a raspberry in response to the similar sound. How clever our girl is!

Last weekend, we took her to her first swim at the swimming pool in Bærum. She was very good, and seemed to enjoy the water. She even kicked out her feet at the same time with the heels together. She looked like a little frog!! I'm hoping she will grow to love swimming as much as I do.