Dear Annelise,
Oh my girl, you have changed so much this month! I feel like you are at the point in your life where there is a lot of learning and changing, both physically and mentally, happening, and it's not going to stop for quite a few months. It is so exciting to watch you learn and discover new things every day. Every day is different with you and I love waking up and not knowing what you will surprise me with.
You sit all on your own now! Last month, you were just starting to work on sitting alone, and now it's something that you've mastered. You still bobble and fall over from time to time, but I think that's because you get so interested in what else you are doing that you forget to balance. You really enjoy being able to sit and play with your toys. I will spread a blanket on the floor and give you some toys and you love it. It is so fun for me to watch you play with each different toy. You inspect it and manipulate it in your hands. Sometimes, you get so into it that you topple forwards or backwards. If you go forwards, you will play on your tummy some. If you go backwards, you usually start fussing to sit back up. You do a little "baby crunch" and wait for me to pull you back up.
You have started to push up on your knees. You have been scooting yourself backwards, no forward crawling yet, but I can see your little brain trying to figure out how to do it. You have gone from just pushing up on your knees a tiny bit, to pushing all the way on them and wanting to move them. I have a feeling that you will be crawling by the end of this month! Time to start baby proofing!
If I thought that you loved Maya before, you definitely think that she is the greatest thing ever now! Any time that she is around you, you have the biggest smile on your face. You start laughing at her and giggle even more when she plays or comes to kiss you.
Sleep. Oh sleep. We have a love/hate relationship with sleep. First of all, Daddy and I moved your Rock N Play to your room for you to sleep in there. You have done great sleeping in your room all on your own. We have been trying to transition you to sleeping in your crib. We have good days and bad days. I started off by having you nap in your crib, and then I thought that once we established good naps that we would move to nights in your crib. Sounds like a good plan, right? Well, you thought differently. I have started a routine with you when it's nap time. We go into your room and I shut the blinds so that it's nice and dark in there. I swaddle you, turn on ocean on your sound machine, and sit down to nurse and rock you to sleep. After you are asleep, I, oh so very carefully, get up and put you in your crib. Most of the time it works, you stay asleep, and sleep anywhere from one to three hours. We had such a good routine going with naps, that I decided to start trying to have you sleep overnight in your crib. You decided that you hated me putting you to bed and fought every time I tried to put you in your crib. You did much better when Daddy laid you down. We had one good night of crib sleeping, and then you went through a Wonder Week. Basically, you have been waking up once in the middle of the night. Sometimes you eat and go right back to sleep and sometimes you want to play. Let me tell you, little lady, 4 AM is NOT an appropriate playtime! I will remember this when you are a teenager and want to sleep!! Ha!! So, we are back to working on getting good naps in your crib and then we will try nights again. I know that you'll get it, I just need to be patient.
We are doing Baby Led Weaning (BLW) with you for solids. I had every intention of waiting until your six month birthday to start, but you have shown us that you are ready to be an eater. I put your high chair together a couple of weeks ago and let you try it out. You loved it! The other day, I took a pickle spear out of the jar for me to eat. You started eyeballing me, so I gave you a taste. You made a funny face, then reached for more. After that taste, you grabbed onto my hand and would not let it go. You wanted that pickle! So, I put you in your high chair, gave you the pickle spear, and let you have fun. You had the best time! You moved it from hand to hand, sucked on it, pushed it around your tray, squished it with your fingers; you had so much fun with it. I had so much fun watching you! Since then, we've given you lemon, which you loved, avocado, which you weren't crazy about, cucumber, you loved, and zucchini, which you loved. You ate the zucchini in your high chair and had such a great time exploring it. Daddy is a little worried when you gag, and I explained to him that it's normal, but it still makes us nervous. I have no doubts that you will love a lot more food as we begin the journey with solids. You are so ready for it!
You do a lot of screeching! I love it when you're vocal. However, I don't really hear many definite sounds. You do say "ma" or "mom" very clearly, but everything else is really just screeches. Sometimes there will be a "yayaya" sound. I'm curious how this will play out. I talk to you a lot, and I can see you listening to me, but you don't really "conversate" back yet.
Right now, you are wearing size 6-9 month clothes, and are in a size 3 diaper. It is crazy to me how big you've gotten!
My heart is so full of love for you. These past six months have been some of the best months of my life. You bring me so much joy and I love watching the person you are becoming.
Love you always,
Mommy
