Six Months Old

Shelby is six months old today. I know it's so cliche and parents say it all the time, but the time really does go by so fast. I can't believe six months ago today we were driving to the hospital in the last snow flurry of winter. That afternoon I held my baby girl in my arms for the first time. And here we are today, half way to a year old. There's so much to celebrate. So much to be thankful for. So much to look forward to.

Here are some observations about Shelby at six months:

• It seems like she does something new every day. One day it's sticking out her tongue. Another day it's blowing raspberries. But everything is so cute and you can tell things like sticking out her tongue are really amusing to her.
• She's become really good at grabbing and manipulating objects. She can pick individual toys out of a box one at a time and turns them over and over in her hands, inspecting every detail. This weekend we were at a friend's house and she was able to pick up these flat foam numbers off the floor. Quite the dextrous girl!
• Although she caught her first cold and it seems like she's had a runny nose for the entire month of September, Shelby is overall a healthy girl. We feel extremely fortunate.
• She absolutely loves her thumb. She only sucks on it when she is feeling tired or overwhelmed, so it's a very useful tool in determining when she needs a nap! It's sort of amazing how quickly it calms her down when she's feeling the least bit upset... BAM! Thumb in the mouth for a few seconds and it's all better again. I know thumb sucking is probably bad, but she was never a pacifier fan and anything that she can do to self soothe is okay with me. We'll think about thumb weaning later but right now it's fine.
• Speaking of naps, she's really predictable with napping. She can usually stay up for right around two hours before becoming sleepy. She goes down easily and usually naps for at least 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. Right when I gave up trying to predict or "schedule" sleep, she became pretty predictable... go figure! We do cue based naps based on how long she's been up since her last nap. She usually takes three naps a day and we've been inching her bedtime earlier in place of a fourth early evening nap and she is doing fine. Last night she slept for 10 hours, ate and went back to sleep! I might have to eat my words one day, but we have not had to do any sleep training or "cry it out" and I don't ever want to. I'm too much of a softie.
• She absolutely loves to sit up and it's opened up a whole new perspective on the world. It's wonderful to be able to plop her down on the carpet and just watch her play with books and toys. You can tell she's very curious about books and she will hold the pages of board books and stare at the pictures, right before she tries to eat the book.
• She loves to talk and sing. She is really finding her voice and makes the funniest high pitched cooing noises. She does it a lot in the car and I sometimes wonder if she is "singing" along to the radio.
• She's becoming so much fun and her personality is really emerging. It's easy to make her laugh. She really is a happy, easygoing baby and rarely gets fussy or cries.
• She's getting heavy! I'd guess she is over 15 pounds now.
• She just recently became aware of the cat. They have staring contests. O'Malley tries to act aloof but you can tell he is really curious about her.
• She can pop up to a standing position if you hold her hands and gently pull upward. Her legs are getting strong and although tummy time is still not her favorite activity I know she will be crawling in no time at all. Her legs are so strong that it sometimes hurts if she kicks you.
• Her hair started thinning out a little bit at around three months but there is new hair growing in and it's getting thick again. I think she's going to have a lot of hair.
• She loves to chomp on her feet. I love it when babies grab their feet and ever since she was born I would talk about how much I could not wait for the day when she could grab her feet and now she can. It's so adorable!

When I was pregnant, someone told me, "The days are long but the years are short." Truer words have never been spoken. We love you, baby girl!