teeth

dear sophia,

today you are six whole months old. it’s your half birthday!!! when we met you exactly six months ago, frankly i never thought we’d get here. life was really hard for awhile when you were born, mostly because people aren’t meant to survive without sleep. but we made it through, with lots of tears, poopy nappies, sleepless nights, and unhappy mommy and daddy times. it was the daytime cuddles, lovely kisses, exciting developments, and so many more amazing moments that got us through it. i spent half of my time willing you to do the next thing, because everything you did was so incredible, and half of my time telling myself to soak you up just as you were. it’s already hard to remember the early days, but luckily your daddy is clever and has a much better memory than me. i’m sure he remembers our first trip out of the house (to starbucks, where else?!), the first time you smiled, the first time you threw up all over him (hey, all memories don’t have to be super adorable!), and everything else between then and now.

at six lovely months you have come so far! you chatter away all day long…and sometimes all night long, but you’re getting much better. you can sit up by yourself and like to play like that for what seems like hours, but in actuality is only probably fifteen minutes because you’re a baby and your attention span is still so short. you roll around the room like a pro, but only to the right. when you get angry you tuck up your knees underneath and push yourself along. you’re not far from crawling at all! you have two big fat razor sharp teeth at the bottom of your mouth, which you use to bite toys, food, and hands! you’ve just started eating big girl foods and sitting up at the table with us. right now your favorites are toast with hummus, cucumber, and pizza (but shhh mommy definitely didn’t give you any to try ;)). rough play makes you belly laugh, but you HATE getting dressed after a bath. you scream so loud when i change you that i’m sure someone will someday rush to our door asking if you’ve been murdered. you like watching television, and sesame street is one of your favorites. you still love listening to classical music, but enjoy a bit of pop on occasion too. your favorite books are goodnight moon, wynken, blynken, and nod, and the very hungry caterpillar. night times are not always perfect…you still wake up once in the night for a feed and sometimes it’s hard to get you back to sleep. we haven’t had the heart to sleep train you yet, but this month we’re going to move you to your nursery so we have lots of big steps in store for all three of us.

you are such a happy, smiley, lovely baby that everyone around us comments on your loveliness, and it makes me so proud to be your momma. thank you for giving me a fantastic six months. i can’t wait to see what you will do next.

i’m so sorry for being gone for so long. inexcusable, really, but things have just been a little crazy over the past few weeks. i’ve wanted to blog a million times, but somehow experiencing life seemed more important than writing about it, for awhile at least.

some of you know that we ventured out on our first transatlantic journey with s last month. let me just say this: not doing it again before this child can walk. The trip itself wasn’t actually HORRIBLE. s was a genius baby, as always, sucking her dummy during takeoff and landing on both flights (i had every intention of nursing at these points but it quickly became apparent that a quiet baby was more important than a screaming hot mess of a child…who knew people’s looks could cut you so deep?!) and generally being an awesome baby. the trip back was not quite as awesome. it involved lots of s crying, strangers telling me my baby needed to swallow, and me almost getting kicked off the plane for beating the crap out of said stranger (just kidding, but seriously? do you think i don’t know that my baby’s ears need to pop?). we were very very very happy to get home and back to normal, but it was fantastic being away and seeing my family.

all smiles…before the trip started.

some highlights from the past month:

meeting and visiting with parents, sisters, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, great aunts, great great aunts and uncles, great cousins, and everyone under the sun in my hometown! s loved being the center of attention, chattering away to everyone, waving (i know! genius baby!), flirting, and kissing at every opportunity.

my parents…gram and poppa…with s. adorable!

sisters!

s and gram, who finally got her cuddles!

starting to become mobile…rolling across the room in one direction, arching her back and flipping over, lifting up her knees and bum and pushing off our legs and hands. it won’t be long til we have a crawler, and until i have a big problem. i’m tired just thinking about it.

where did my tiny baby go?

TEETH! well, one officially, but the second one is pretty much cut, too. i can’t believe my baby isn’t toothless anymore! this definitely means it’s almost time to start weaning (in the british sense of the word…). we’re going to try baby led weaning rather than purees and rice cereal, which means just giving hunks of baby sized food and letting her play with it and work on eating it. we have to wait until she can sit up on her own, but she’s almost there and we’re shopping tomorrow for a high chair! i have a feeling this blog will take a turn and follow this pretty closely, so if you’re ready for lots of pictures of messy, happy baby and messy, messy house then you’re in luck!

ok so you can’t really see teeth, but i can’t get her to open her mouth long enough!

FIVE YEARS of marriage. i can’t believe it’s been five years since we got married, and our wonderful adventure over here began! it’s flown by, and remembering it all has made me feel so old, but i wouldn’t change any of it for the world. we had every intention of having a date night on our actual anniversary, but s is a diva (my baby?! no way. ;)) and wouldn’t take a bottle for my mom. we settled for ice cream from coldstone instead. and wine. lots of wine.