The Morris Family: Holland: 5 Months Old

This grinning little girl is now five months old. Five months! We are so incredibly grateful to have her in our family.

Holland is SUCH A GOOD BABY. She is patient and happy and rarely squawks or screams. So much of our time goes to Reed – who is just at a busy toddler age! – and Holland is almost always content to sit by and watch, taking it all in.

She inherited gorgeous blue eyes from her dad. They are deep blue – less gray than Reed’s – and so hard to capture. I love looking into those gorgeous pools of blue. Her hair is still blonde as can be, even after the three or four haircuts she's had.

Over the past month or so she’s started doing the funniest thing when she’s eating: she’ll be nursing and I’ll feel her lose her latch. When I look down I find that she's slid one of her little fingers into her mouth. Ha! It happens almost every feeding, often several times, and it makes me laugh. She just really needs to suck on her finger right then!

A few weeks ago she rolled over for the first time – we were even all there! I had TJ keep the camera on for about an hour trying to catch it again. Good thing we gave that up, as she hasn’t rolled over since.

She really loves to be UP - she does "hollow holds" a dozen or more times a day, where she lifts both her head and her feet while lying on the ground and just holds that position. She also loves to stand and is strong enough now that we can just hold her hands and she can stay up.

Reed pointing to a worker wearing orange; Holland trying to figure out how to suck on the book.

When I put Holland to sleep I often swaddle her, then hold her up on my shoulder (she FAR prefers being up than being cradled), and sway back and forth while I stand in her room. When she falls asleep on her own it is almost always with her hands right in front of her face, usually holding something (her binky clip if that’s all she has) until she falls asleep.

She loves having her eyes covered when she sleeps. I would never have figured this out, but both TJ and his mom figured it out independently (how?). She also pulls her arms out of her swaddle as quick as she can.

She is quite a good little kicker and I can’t help but laugh when I praise her for kicking (“Oh, Holland, that’s great kicking!”) and Reed lays next to her and says “Reed kicker.”

We’ve let her lick/suck on a few foods and she just plain loves them: grapes, strawberries, and peaches (pictured here) so far.

She’s not the world’s biggest spitter, for sure, but Holland does spit up enough that we go through all our burp cloths every few days. I didn’t realize until I was just digging through pictures that I even caught her actually spitting in this one. Because of spitting up she usually changes 3-4 times a day (and I usually change a couple times too, after she nails me).

Reed noticing the spit up before I do...

Holland is so patient with Reed. Over the weekend we went up the canyon for dinner with TJ’s family. I thought it would be cute to get some pictures with Reed holding Holland. You can see from the shot below that Reed had had enough after about 30 shots and he just threw her on the ground. Oh my. [Note: I would say we were being responsible and had TJ right there to catch her, but he didn’t even move as she went down so that disclaimer isn’t valid.] Holland landed in the dirt but didn’t even cry.

This is how Reed asks to hold "Hanuh."

Holland loves to be outside. When she is so fussy I can’t calm her (not often-she’s just such a great baby) it almost always works to take her outside and just enjoy the fresh air.

With TJ's mom, Holland's middle namesake (Eileen)

Holland is a fantastic sleeper. I keep thinking maybe one day it’s going to end but at this point I HOPE NOT. At about six weeks she was sleeping 7 hours at night (I have no idea how this happened). At this point she usually gets up around 4 or 5 AM to eat and then goes back to sleep until about 8. It’s pretty dreamy and magical and all the best adjectives. We are so grateful for the sleep.

Right near her five month mark she moved into her own room, across the hallway. After a couple pretty sleepless nights for me we seem to be in the groove now.

She isn’t really a fan of the green chair that we sit her in (her bouncer seat, though the bouncer doesn’t work) while we’re in the kitchen. She also doesn’t love the swing. She does like sitting in the corner of the couch (where there’s enough space for her to tip without falling off) and she really loves kicking in her crib (I think the mattress “echoing” is fun for her – Reed loved it too).

Reed unknowingly gave Holland her nickname - "Hanuh" (not sure how better to spell it) which sometimes gets shortened to "Hahn". When we first brought her home and he learned her name that was how he pronounced it. Well, just about two weeks ago he said to me, clear as day, "Holland sleep," which did make me sad because I loved how he said "Hanuh!" That said, we still - including Reed - call her Hanuh most the time.