Cate’s 5-month birthday was on Wednesday, and I meant to do one of my milestone recap posts on that day, but this week has been a kitchen painting frenzy (more on that later), and when I’ve had time to write at night, I’ve been opting instead to collapse in absolute exhaustion. So, a couple of days late, here it is:

* Catie-girl can now roll over from her back to her tummy whenever she wants, and she loves to do it. A lot. She’s rolled from her tummy to her back a couple of times, but it’s not entirely consistent. And sometimes she seems to roll herself over by accident, and boy, she is not happy when that happens.

* Along the same lines: now that she’s able to roll herself, she seems to prefer sleeping on her side. It doesn’t matter if I put her in her crib when she’s already asleep, the second that her head touches the mattress, she shifts around so that she’s on her left side. Which is funny, since probably 90% of the time, I have to be on my left side to be able to fall asleep too.

* This isn’t a milestone because she’s done it for ages, I just think it’s hilarious and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before: every time Dave sneezes, she screams her head off. I guess it’s the loud, sudden noise that scares her, but I’m not a quiet sneezer either, and she never freaks out when I sneeze. Maybe it’s because she felt my sneezes for 9 months when I was pregnant with her? I can’t imagine. But every time Dave sneezes, there’s about a two-second delay where we’re both like “oh here we go,” and then the scream starts.

* She loves it when we blow in her hair. I don’t know why, but it always makes her laugh and kick. Or jump, if she’s in the jumperoo. Oh, and the love affair with the jumperoo has not ended. It’s one of her favorite places to be, she can bounce happily for over half an hour sometimes. And if we have one of the Baby Einstein DVD’s is playing on the TV at the same time? Pure baby bliss.

* We’re still working on the rice cereal, and if any of you know how to spoon-feed a child who always has her tongue stuck out, please give me some pointers. I’m not worried about it, we started her on solids relatively early and I know that she’ll figure it out in her own time, and lord knows it isn’t like she’s wasting away. But so far we haven’t had much luck. I get the spoon in her mouth, I make little “mmmm” noises with my lips shut to see if she gets the idea, she thinks my “mmmm” noise is funny, so she laughs, which mean the tongue comes all the way out, and the rice cereal ends up on her chin rather than in her mouth. Yeah. I’m at a loss.

* She used to hate it when the cats accidentally brushed against her, but she’s recently started noticing them and trying to reach for them when they pass her. The cats are generally still a little unsure about her, except Cleo. Poor Cleo is such an attention whore that she’s all, “Want to twist my ear? Make a fist around my whiskers and yank as hard as you can? Ok, that’s cool. Just pet me, pet me, loooove me. Purrrrrrrrrrrrr.” I’m trying to guide her hand to show her how to gently pet the kitties, but I don’t know how much good it does for a tiny person with very little motor control.

* The sleeping is going well. She averages about 7 hours straight, then we’re up for an hour or two – we have a bottle, a diaper change, and we play for a while – and then we go back to sleep for a couple of hours (our mid-morning nap). It’s enough sleep that I feel human again for the most part. Which is pretty amazing, since it wasn’t that long ago that I could’ve sworn that I was so sleep-deprived that I would never recover.

And even though it’s probably not true, I’ve managed to convince myself that she’s sleeping so well because we have our evening routine of going for a walk and then having a bath. I’ve been religious about this routine too; we walk every. single. night. Even when it’s raining, I put a hat on her and button my raincoat around both of us, so the only thing that might possibly get damp is her face. And even though this week has kicked my butt with all the kitchen painting, we’ve still been going for our usual walk, despite the fact that sometimes it feels like my lower back is going to explode. (I used the backpack carrier a few times this week, hoping that it might use different muscles than the Baby Bjorn and not hurt my back as much. And yes, it does use different muscles, but no, it wasn’t any less painful.)

And I’ve noticed that since we’ve been walking every day, I have less cellulite on my butt and thighs. Which, ok, that’s not a part of my body that I typically obsess about. I have very specific body part neuroses, and the butt/thigh area just doesn’t rank as high on my freak-meter as some other places (like my boobs, for example). But still, I’m pretty darn happy about the lack of cellulite. Not that I’m going to be breaking out the short-shorts anytime in the foreseeable future, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

But since this post isn’t supposed to be about me and I’m now thoroughly off the subject of baby milestones, I think that’s a sign that it’s time to call it a night and go to sleep. Stay tuned for pictures of my pretty kitchen cabinets. Even though the walls are still four different colors.