6 Months Old

Dear Raye,

Three days ago you turned six months old, the big half-a-year. Time sure does fly. Every time I start to get frustrated that you're not on more of a schedule yet I remind myself that another six months from now you'll probably be sleeping longer at night, you'll only be taking two naps a day, and so on. I'm much less stressed out about your loosey-goosey schedule than I would have been with Lane or Noel. Which is nice.

Snoozin' on the bus ride to Georgia.

Raye, you are such a sweetheart. You're still quite the happy and content baby, but within the last week you've started to get your two bottom front teeth, so they're giving you some trouble. You've been a little cranky about that, but overall you're still happy. You're still sleeping alright at night...I'm ready for you to sleep past 4 or 5 in the morning, but I feel bad for you because I know that your teeth are bothering you, so I usually cave and feed you and then you go back to sleep. You do usually at least sleep straight through until that early morning feeding, though, so I'm grateful for that. You're nursing about six times a day, still, but you're content so I'm not worrying about it even though I'd love to work you down to four or five. 

This month we started feeding you more solids and you are a fan. You do not like the texture (at least I'm assuming it's the texture) of the rice cereal here. You pretty much don't like anything pureed. So instead I'm cooking things in small chunks and you're chowing down. You love zucchini, bananas, and avocado. You'll eat plain yogurt and homemade oat cereal but your face is so funny because it's obvious you're not really a fan. You're still pretty slow at eating so I feel like you spend most of your day either sleeping or eating, because you still want to eat, it just takes you forever to gum things since you don't like them pureed.

Chillin' in Tbilisi.

This month you got another stamp in your passport as we traveled to Georgia. We took a bus and you did great. You were a trooper the whole trip, taking naps while I carried you in the Ergo and missing out on most of Tbilisi, but you didn't seem to care too much. Your infected hangnail is much better now and while we're still waiting on the fingernail to grow out, you're not sucking on your fingers/thumb much anymore (you prefer the paci, yay!) so you're not having to wear a sock on your hand 24/7.

You also have started to sit up a bit on your own but are not too good at it yet. You are usually trying to look at something so end up toppling over. But you can sit up well in your highchair and do well if someone is sitting behind you. You are also pushing yourself up into a "girl" pushup position but you're not trying to push yourself around much yet. I think it has to do mostly with the fact that we have wood floors and you're wearing pants because it's cold, so you just end up sliding around. You push yourself up much more when you're in the living room on our only rug. You roll all over the place, but you prefer to be on your tummy and to play on your tummy. You like to look at the world, chew on your toys, and sometimes yell at them.

You are such a sweetie-pie, Raye. We all love you so much and we all love to see you smile and interact with us. I'm so excited to see your personality develop even more and to see your relationship with your sisters deepen. You will surely all be thick as thieves.

I love you, Raye, and am so grateful for you.

Love,

Mommy