It’s been a relatively calm week. J has been working so hard on crawling that not much else has been happening.

– Mobility increases. She can now get where she wants to go without (mostly) face planting. She pushes up to her hands and knees and rocks back and forth until she can get one knee moved, then she faceplants.

– First bout of baby constipation. Whee! She went from Saturday through Thursday without pooing, then again until Sunday. I gave her some warm water and I don’t know if that’s what did it, but she’s back to twice a day (it seems)

– Since we’re talking about diapers.. Her farts are starting to stink. I think we won’t have long before god puts odor in the poopoo.

– New foods: raspberry (not sure if any made it to her mouth), pear (yum!), persimmon (no thanks), and cinnamon (on her sweet potatoes. She sucked off the cinnamon then dropped the piece of potato and grabbed the next one)

– Sippy cups: I gave her a sippy cup with warm water. She got the hang of it pretty much immediately. To prevent orthodontic problems, I’ve ordered her a Wow cup. The doidy cup is too hard to hold. I’m hoping to find a way to get handles on the wow cup, since the baby wow cup won’t be released until spring 2014. She may use a sippy cup for the Xmas travel.

– New car seat has arrived! I haven’t un boxed it yet but we have an appointment on Thursday with Austin’s car seat safety group to make sure we’re using it right.

– consonants now include a hard g, d, and th. I think those are all new. So it’s those plus t, b, and m. Also still lots of raspberries and German what is that throat noise called anyway.

– First Thanksgiving! She got to try turkey and pumpkin soup. The turkey turned into a utensil for eating more soup.

– 6 month checkup. This included 5 shots (poor girl, she took it like a champ)which gave her a fever of 103.2. Fortunately she is now old enough to take ibuprofen, and even though she hates it it’s quite effective.

– 6mo stats:

head circumference 43.7cm (85th percentile)
Weight: 20lb 4 oz (97th percentile)
Length: 29″ (off the charts!)

Since her current car seat is only good through 30″ and we will need one she can fly in come Christmas, I bought the next car seat. We got a Radian R120 which, while neither cheap nor lightweight, is our best bet for keeping her rear facing for as long as we can. And with a 10 year expiration and forward facing up to 120lb, it will hopefully be the last car seat we buy.

– Consonants are now part of her babbling. Her favorite so far is the t sound (“ah-TAH! TAH! Ah-TAH!”) but “mm” and “b” and the gurgling “ch” sound of Southern German are also popular. The chchch sound especially, when she’s excited or happy.

– A sad one for mom: today she drank 20oz of milk at school, which exceeds the amount I’ve been pumping recently. Tomorrow will be the first day we have to send her in with milk from our stash because I didn’t produce enough. I am trying very hard to be ok with this. There’s lots of milk in the freezer and I can pump 20oz maybe 2/5 of the time, so it’s not a drastic difference. But after 6 months of stressing about whether I have enough milk, it’s hard to be presented with evidence that I might be coming up short after all my struggles.

– This last one might not be anything yet. She’s been very fussy (for her) since her appointment last Weds. I think the first couple days were from the shots,but now I’m pretty sure we are seeing acute teething! Only time will tell. She might just be feeling fussy because she’s so close to crawling but isn’t yet.

– oh! I almost forgot! She’s now pushing up from her tummy to her hands and knees, and rocking forward and backwards like she knows she’s onto something but isn’t quite sure what to do next.

– She officially reached 6 months! Yay!

– New foods include broccoli and bread. She liked both, and got broccoli ev.er.y.where. For those playing along at home, the current list is:

• bagel
• avocado
• sweet potato
• apples
• carrots
• banana
• applesauce
• broccoli
• bread

– Army crawl! She can now move herself, rather slowly and with a great deal of effort, across the room. Mostly she employs this skill to acquire her foam bath toys, although she got pretty annoyed when Dad kept moving his pizza out of her reach

– New sleep record: 6.5 hours (which was simultaneously glorious and painful for me!)

– Thumb sucking. I’ve spotted her a couple times with her thumb in her mouth. It may have been coincidence. I gave her a pacifier anyway. She’ll now chew on it. She hasn’t figured out which end goes in her mouth (she mostly uses that part as a handle) but hey, it’s a start.

– She is also definitely now afraid of our neighbors. She’ll tolerate one of them, if I’m holding on to her, but she cries every time she sees the other. We’re not sure why, but I think it’s a fear of strangers combined with the fact that Dad’s pretty much the only guy she ever spends time with.

– Sitting up without leaning on her hands

– Mom forgot to post this so who knows what else!

– New foods include applesauce and banana.

– Mobility! She has discovered how exciting it is to move! She isn’t creeping or crawling yet, but she’s getting pretty darned good at rolling herself where she wants to go! The days of putting her down in one spot and coming back in 5 minutes and her still being there are over. The other day I put her down to go to the bathroom, and she started crying about halfway through… I came back and she’d wedged herself under the entertainment center.

– First cat scratch :(. She apparently grabbed Chen in a way that hurt Chen, and dad didn’t notice in time. Chen scratched her right on the cheek. It’s a small scratch, but still :(. Right now she can’t control her touch but we’re still teaching her to be gentle with all living things.

– First diaper rash. I thought maybe we’d be the only people to magically avoid diaper rashes at all. Zinc oxide creams didn’t seem to do anything for it, but plenty of diaperless time and plenty of CJ’s BUTTer seems to be clearing it up.

– There’s something else big but I can’t remember what.

– she has definitely got the hang of sweet potato! This weekend we introduced honeycrisp apples, nuked until soft. She kept making faces at the apple, I think it was maybe too tart a choice, but she kept going back for it so I don’t think she disliked the tartness of it.

– this isn’t exactly her milestone, but dad and I went on our first date since she was born! We decided not to talk about J at all, and had a wonderful time just chatting and laughing and eating as much meat as we could fit (we went to a Brazilian churrascaria place). It was wonderful to reconnect with each other. J had a rougher time and wouldn’t stay asleep. She has a cold and her cough kept waking her and mom wasn’t there to nurse and comfort her. I am grateful we were able to get out but I do feel bad for my little munchkin.

– fear of strangers. She is definitely beginning to be wary of people she doesn’t know. Not yet afraid, but definitely reserved.

– Grabbing for food. She’s been grabbing for everything and sticking it in her mouth recently, but she definitely makes a concerted effort to get food mom or dad is eating. This led to a few instances of her eating foods we did not intend to feed her. A bite of bagel, and a couple sucks on Mom’s swedish fish (I let her have the second one because it was so cute)

– First (intentional) solid food (that she actually ate)! Last week’s avocado was fun but she didn’t exactly eat it. This week there was the far more fun steamed sweet potato. She played with it for about 10 minutes and it wasn’t until dad started eating a bowl of stew that she actually tried eating some. Maybe it was coincidence, but I swear that she started with eating because we were. Once I saw her watching dad eat I remembered that you’re supposed to eat with baby to make baby led weaning most successful, so I ate some of her (gross, slimy, cold) sweet potato. Once she got the hang of it she had so much fun! I’ll have to figure out how to embed the videos from my iPad. For now here’s a link:

sweet potato video

– Lunging at things. She’s started throwing herself towards things she wants to grab, regardless of how secure her current position. Carrying her in one arm is pretty much over.

– Her ability to stand is continuing to improve, and it continues to be one of her favorite things! She can now stand with someone holding her hands! Only for a minute at a time, but I think she enjoys the sense of freedom it gives her. The step-step game is also a favorite.

– Grabbing for mom’s food and drink! Solids are just two weeks away!

– Accidentally got a mouth full of apple juice (see above). She was not impressed. She spat it all out and made a face.

– Squealing! It is adorable and annoying. And loud. I keep reminding us both that she is just exploring all that her vocal cords can do.

– Passing objects between hands

– Sitting unsupported for extended periods (not quite indefinitely: she eventually topples, but it can be 5-10 minutes!)

– Stepping with purpose while someone holds her standing. I call this the “step step game” and every time she takes a step I exclaim, “Step!” It’s a great deal of fun for everyone except my triceps.

– Crawling is just around the corner. During tummy time she will reach for thing she wants and kick her legs a lot. If she were on a more slippery surface I think she’s be able to move. She tries very hard

– First bath in the sink, and also first bath in the tub! Sink bath was frustrating because I forgot to clear off the counters first (grab ALL the things!). I got into the tub with her for bathing in the tub and she loved it. She played with (read:nommed) some foam bath toys, as well as floating with her head supported. I also dribbled water down her face and she wasn’t bothered in the least.

– first drool rash :(. She’s constantly sucking on her lower lip these days, and is developing a rash from the constant wetness that leaves on her lip and chin

– discovered tags! Tags are amazing! Better than all the rest of the toy! I bought her a tag blanket just in time.

20 weeks, wow! It’s been a week full of rain and snuggles. Not many new skills.

– Slept on her stomach at night for the first time. Technically it’s a bit early. She isn’t rolling reliably. But she has no trouble lifting her head and moving it from side to side, and she cried when I put her down on her back. I rolled her over and bam, asleep. So I decided to give it a go. Which led to her next accomplishment:

– Slept 5 hours in a row. Just one hour short of that amazing “sleeping through the night” of which parents speak.

– Not really a milestone, but she has taken to flailing her limbs wildly when she sees me, with a huge smile on her face. It is beyond precious.

– She also loves watching Dad as he moves around the room.

– Also, this has been happening for a while, but I think I’ve forgotten to mention it. She’s fascinated with screens. This week, she is even fascinated with them when they’re off. I used to be able to distract her from my phone or ipad simply by turning the offending device off, but not this week. She knows what they are, and she wants them!

– First day home all day with just dad! They both did great.