6 months

 

It is Madeline’s verrrryyy merry half birthday! I know I say it every month but I just don’t know where time has gone. How has it been half a year? Why is she growing?

My poor baby girl spent her half birthday covered in a rash that won’t seem to go away, but she is the biggest trooper I’ve ever met. She had to get her shots and blood drawn all in the same week and she was so amazing about it. She didn’t even cry when she had her blood drawn through the arm, like an adult. She is much braver than her daddy when it comes to needles.

So what was new in month 6? Well, she weighed in at 15 lbs 2 ozs and was 27 and a quarter inches long. This means in the last 2 months, she has gained 2 pounds but only grew a quarter of an inch. The doctor says she is still in the 95th percentile for height and around the 50th percentile for weight. Her head measured 42 inches (I think) and is still in the 50th percentile. I find it hard to believe that 50% of babies have a larger head, since Madeline’s doesn’t fit in a lot of stuff for her size. We’ve moved up to 6 month clothes and even some 9 months for length.

 

(I’m in love with this picture and those chubby thighs and those blue eyes)

She has officially learned to sit on her own and very recently got in a sitting position from her stomach by herself. She prefers to crawl, or commando crawl as the case may be, since she still doesn’t crawl on all fours. It doesn’t stop her from getting around though. Now that she realizes she can move, if we leave her in the living room alone for a minute, she’ll crawl into the kitchen or down the hallway to find us. This has led to her finding the dog’s water and food bowl, both of which she promptly stuck her hands in. She loves to stand and would rather be doing that than anything else. In fact, yesterday or the day before, she officially pulled herself up to standing all by herself. It was amazing and now she is doing it regularly (mostly in an attempt to get at my laptop…its home on the couch is probably going to be no more). Taking pictures is near impossible, since she won’t stay still for more than 5 seconds.

Everything is still going in the mouth and there are still no signs of teeth. Mommy is thrilled. She loves faces and pulling my hair. She smiles all the time and it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Its even beautiful when she has done something painful like yanked half my hair out of my head, or gross like pooping so much it reaches her eyebrows, or even mischievous like crawled across the room to get a wire. We have officially started solid foods (more on that later) and she is an AMAZING eater. She scarfs everything down and a few times she has even cried for more. 

She said her first words, mama, and it was beyond adorable. She did this funny thing with her mouth where she pulled her lips in like an old lady without dentures and said, mmmmm…ma…ma. I loved it, of course, but she has quickly moved on to dada, baba, and wawa, all of which she says much more frequently.

She celebrated her first Chanukah, Christmas, and New Years. She met more family, which means she has almost met everyone, and we discovered that she is a super social baby. She loved everyone she met and was happy to be passed around and played with, or at least until she got sleepy, which is normal. She visited 9 new states (New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) and finally stopped having a meltdown every time we put her in the car seat. Apparently, the trick to the car seat is that Derek has to strap her in and both of us have to sit in the front seat.

Little love,

I just want you to know that this has been the most difficult, amazing, life affirming, heart expanding six months of our lives. It hasn’t even been a whole year but we can hardly remember life before you and we certainly can’t picture our life without you in it.You are so strong, so smart, and so beautiful and even six months later, looking at you can make my heart feel like its going to burst from love. We don’t know how we got so lucky to have you as our baby. We can’t wait to find out what the rest of the year has in store for you!