six months of gwen

My Gwennie,

Look at you! Six months old. It is impossible for me to believe that it has been half a year since that early Monday morning when you took my breath away in a million different ways. You add so much to this family. So much joy, so much crazy, so much laughter. You fill our hearts completely. 

You are growing like a bad weed. I don’t have your stats just yet so your appointment isn’t until next week (updated: you weigh 15lbs 9 oz and are 26 3/4 inches long. That's half an inch longer than your sister was at 6months, but 2/3 of a pound lighter. My teeny bug!). But you’re wearing mostly all 6-9 and 9 month clothes, medium diaper covers and size 3 disposables. The weight of my arms tells me you’re getting heavier and heavier all the time. Here’s how you’ve looked this month:

This month has been jam.packed.full of busy. It’s been fun but it also makes the time fly by too quickly. Here are the highlights of this month: you’ve had (and are currently still in the midst of) your first two sickness, you are sitting up almost completely unassisted. Of course, you will sit up no problem for 20 minutes straight but if I sit you down and turn my back for 1.3 seconds you topple over. You’re figuring out how to ease yourself down to your belly, though. You are also working hard on getting yourself from a tummy/hands and knees position to a sitting position. You can do it no problem with your hiney is nakey, but once we throw those bothersome diapers and clothes into the mix everything gets a little more tricky. About halfway through the month, you started getting yourself onto your hands and knees and rocking back and forth. You’re not quite to the point where I’d say you are crawling yet, but you definitely figure out how to move. You do a lot of lunging, army crawling and face planting when you set your mind to it. Usually, if your soosie is out of your reach, that’s when you get moving.

You nurse 7-8 times through the day, and often at night, especially now that you are sick. You haven’t started any solids, except a small taste of steamed carrots, but we’ll be slowly working on that in the coming month. You usually nap 3 times a day. On a typical day, you’re up around 7 or just before, down between 8:30-9 for an hour to two hours and then down again between 12-1 for another 1.5-2 hours. Usually, 4pm hits and you need a catnap to make it until bedtime. You go down for the night around 6:45-7. Before leaving for Christmas and getting a cold, you were sleeping really well through the night, so hopefully we’ll get back to that soon. You haven’t slept longer than a 2-3 hour stretch in over two weeks now and we’re all getting pretty tired. No teeth yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up soon. You’re gnawing on everything and drooling like crazy.

Your sixth month started with your dedication, and was packed full of Christmas activities and preparations. We had the joy of having Nana and Papa here for a few days leading up to Christmas and for Christmas morning. Then we headed out and  spent the next 11 days away. First at Nana and Grandpa’s and then at Nana and Papa’s. It was, by far, your longest amount of time away from home. While we were gone we celebrated Christmas with both sides of the family, spent loads of time with your cousins and rang in the New Year with the Cann’s and Lansdell’s.

      Despite your sickies, you are still a happy girl. You laugh easily and aren’t ever quiet for too long. You have to be noisy to be heard around here, I’m afraid. I can already see you becoming more and more eager to keep up with your Big Sister’s antics. You work hard to move yourself close to where she is and you’ve already figured out that whatever she is playing with is miles more interesting than the boring old baby toys that I set you up with. It’s so sweet to me to see you start to play together and I know that will become more and more prevalent as the months go by. As will the fighting over toys. Soon your Big Sissy is going to realize that she can’t always have her way. I have a feeling you won’t have any trouble learning to stand up for yourself. You’re quite the little spitfire, yourself.

You are growing too fast. I’ve said it so many times and I won’t stop. I blink and you’re another month older. Thinking of this makes me realize the importance of living in the moment with you. As I’ve heard it said many times, the days may be long but the moments are fleeting. Here’s to another month of moments.

Love you forever, sweet girl.