The Simple Life: Six months

It's hard to believe that Abby is already half a year old. She has blown us away this past month by how much she's grown and she's experienced a lot of "firsts" this month. She is now in that period of constant motion where she wants to move, grab, and lunge at everything and is very frustrated when she can't do it. She is no longer happy sitting in our laps or being held, she wants to go, go, go! She can now roll over in both directions and has figured out how to inchworm her way towards an object she wants. You can tell she wants to crawl desperately but hasn't figured out how to coordinate her legs yet. She can sit up for short period of time, but she is still pretty wobbly so I wouldn't trust her sitting by herself just yet. She can sit in the "tripod" position for a long time. When we are in the bathtub, she doesn't want to lay down anymore. She likes to sit up and splash the water with her hands and legs. She babbles a lot and says "mama". I don't think she says it with meaning yet but definitely with conviction. When she's mad or frustrated she'll start saying it really fast and LOUD! She likes to mimick sounds and laughter. If we are laughing she will sometimes start laughing as if to be a pat of the conversation, which of course makes Ellie laugh, which makes her laugh more and they get into this laugh cycle which is hilarious.

We bought her a highchair so now she can sit next to Ellie while we eat meals. We attempted to start solids but so far she hasn't been that big of a fan. She seems like she's ready because she can sit up and is definitely interested in the food we are eating, but when I try to feed her she coughs and gags on it. We tried banana and apple, both of which mostly got spit out. I'm not sure if her swallowing reflux is 100% ready so we are going to wait a little while longer before trying again. She is sleeping well and only wakes up once (sometimes twice) a night. She mostly sleeps in her crib now but sometimes if we are desperate we'll bring her to bed with us. She has blessed me with a nap schedule that mostly mirrors Ellie's. She takes a short nap in the morning, a longer nap when Ellie takes her nap, and another short nap around dinner time. It is so amazing to have an hour or two to myself these days although I usually squander it passed out on the couch.

She seems like she has really chubbed out but she is consistently gaining about 1lb per month. When we measured her height she is exactly the same as she was the past two months. I'm not sure if this is because she was measured wrong or if she just stopped growing up. We have a doctor's appointment at the end of this week so we'll find out for sure.

Here are her six month stats:
Weight: 16lb 5oz
Height: 27"
Head circumference: 43.5 cm

We were really busy this past month and ended up doing some unexpected traveling. Sadly Tom's grandma Socco past away and we drove to Arizona for her funeral. The road trip was painful but surprisingly not as painful as I feared. It was fun stopping at places that I remembered stopping at as a kid on our family road trips. We drove straight through in one day and started the first leg in the middle of the night so we got a good chunk of driving done with both girls were still asleep. When they were awake we just had to stop a ton and use emergency measures like junk food and the iPad (God bless the iPad!). The 12 hour drive took us 18 hours. Socco's funeral was beautiful and we were only sorry that we hadn't made the trip while she was still alive. It was the first time that the girls and myself had met a lot of the Jauregui family that lives in Arizona. We had a great time and Ellie enjoyed hanging out with her Aunties and LOVED the hotel pool. It was the first time Abby had ever been swimming and she seemed to like it. Unfortunately she also got her first sunburn because apparently I didn't put on enough sunscreen. Poor baby! Ellie has talked about swimming almost every day since our trip. On the way home we decided to break up the trip and stopped at the Grand Canyon. It was fun to see again but it was so windy (50 mph winds) that we didn't stay long. Ellie could have cared less about it but I really enjoyed seeing it again. We stayed the night in Vegas and got there right as the strip was lighting up. Ellie loved the lights and craziness of the strip. In the morning we walked over to the Bellagio and had brunch before getting back on the road. It was definitely worth the delay. Yumm!

Here are a few pictures from this past month: