~ 6 Months ~

My little lady is 6 months old today and, for me, that has always been a bittersweet milestone. Half a year already!

She has always been a beautiful baby but it seems with each day her beauty increases. With each new expression she makes and each variation of a smile. Her eyes are deep and full of feeling and each day they become more blue.

Not only is she a beautiful baby, she is also the best tempered baby I have ever known. She sleeps through the night and greets me with a huge, full-mouth smile each morning. She sleeps through any combination of screaming, hooting, yowling and wailing. She smiles in her sleep when the sounds of her brothers six footsteps run and leap through the house.

She adores her brothers, by the way. I have never seen a baby so infatuated with her brothers. Nor have I seen little boys so infatuated by a fat little baby girl. They fight over who gets to stand near her when she sits in her highchair and they push and shove at each other for the privilege of being the one who gets their hair pulled. They also think it is hilarious when she yanks their ears. They make all sorts of silly faces and perform amazing feats of acrobatics just to see her smile or hear her laugh.

The only downfall in the character of our little dumpling is her fondness for food. At merely three weeks old she lunged forward in my arms and swiped a tiny handful of mashed potatoes off of my plate at dinner. She stares in passionate lust at any coffee or tea cup we sip from and now that she is old enough to reach, we have to beware whenever we drink or she will grab firmly ahold of the rim and pull the cup towards her, precariously close to spilling the contents upon her face. She is a premature foodie.

At four months she began to sit in her highchair instead of on my lap at mealtimes. Although she still breastfeeds as much as ever, she tucks in at mealtime and eats whatever we are eating. Her favorite foods are oatmeal, bananas, scrambled eggs, potatoes and pumpkin muffins. She will eat anything. She drinks well from a cup if we hold it for her, following in Malachi's footsteps (Malachi refused a bottle or sippy cup and went straight from breast to "real" cup) and she tries to feed herself with her tiny little spoons. If I do not feed her fast enough (ie: I pause from feeding her to take a bit of my own food) she has developed a certain type of shrieking whine that never ceases to startle me. She will gaze at me with an expression of pitiful deprivation that, despite her double chin and her fat rolls, makes her look like someone from the Feed a Child commercials.

She can roll over from stomach to back but not from back to stomach. She hates laying on her stomach and rolled over just from pure hate of the belly down position. She is content to lay on her back for hours and so far, has not been motivated to attempt to roll from her back to her belly. She does, however, push with her feet and push on her shoulders and lift her belly to the sky multiple times per day in a sort of bridge or table move. I bet she has great abs. She can reach and grab things and anything she finds inevitably goes into her mouth. She is very close to sitting. Her feet never stop moving and kicking from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. She is a muscular little ball of energy. She takes two naps per day; one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

With these past six months having gone so fast I am afraid at how fast the next six will go. Having a baby girl has been one of the biggest blessings in my life. David and I marvel every day at how perfect and exquisite she is. It seems, somehow, we are enjoying her more than we did her brothers. We love laying on the bed with her between us, laughing at her expressions and her baby talk. Not because we loved them less, but we know now how fast this time goes. Babies grow up like a weed in the night.

And, of course, she is a doll to sew for. And now that she tolerates bonnets and caps quite well, I think we are in a for a very fun next few years.

Love,
Sarah