Katie's old friends

Katie is doing a great job sitting up and playing, but until recently she spent a lot of time with her old friends the jiggly seat, exersaucer, activity mat and swing. She still enjoys them, but she'd prefer to be sitting on her own and playing with new, smaller toys.

We wanted to share a few photos with her favorite toys for posterity.

Here's Katie with her activity mat. She almost immediately rolls onto her tummy now when we put her down onto it; when she does, she enjoys smiling at the baby in the mirror. (Simon, our terrier, covets the purple elephant you can see on the mat. It won't stay attached, so he thinks it's fair game. Hmmm ... We haven't seen it recently.)

Katie has enjoyed her jiggly chair almost since the beginning. After we added the lion (yellow, far right), it became her jingly chair, too. When she starts butterfly kicking, she can really get it bouncing.

Here's Katie with her exersaucer, shortly after Christmas. It has been amazing watching how quickly she has learned new skills to manipulate the various toys, and she still has a lot of room to grow with this one.

Finally, Katie has an on-again, off-again relationship with the swing. It helped her sleep when she was a tiny baby, then she ignored it until she was reintroduced to the idea at day care. Now she likes it, especially since we added a toy that plays Caribbean-style music.

Click below for more photos from Katie at five months.

Katie at five months