Six Months!

Today Alexandra is six months old!!! I can’t believe how quickly this time has gone. Every day, I’m so thankful to have her in my life, and I can’t believe that I get to have this life, this life as her mom. She’s finally healthy – kind of. After having a 12-day stomach bug, she was healthy for about 1.5 weeks, and then she got a cold which quickly transformed into an ear infection. She was absolutely miserable for a couple days, but now she’s feeling better. She still has a cough, but we smile and say “get it out” or “good cough” when she coughs, and she smiles. Which is better than crying, which she used to do… Another sad thing is she has lost her crying voice, so instead of making a high-pitched cry when she’s upset, she just breathes out, and you can’t hear anything. It’s pitiful, and a little less grating on the nerves… Awful, I know…

Sleeping
She’s a rockstar sleeper! Alex sleeps through the night about 5 times per week, and occasionally will get up, have a bottle, and then go back to sleep. She goes to bed around 7:30-8:00 pm, and I usually wake her up during the week at 7:00 am, or on the weekends she’ll sleep until 7:30. She takes 3 naps per day, ranging from 45 minutes to 2 hours, usually one 2 hour nap, and 2 other 45 minutes naps. All of this in her crib. 

Eating
Alex is a very hungry little girl. At the request of daycare, we have increased her bottle size to 7 ounces, and she finally seems content, although sometimes she doesn’t finish it completely. She drinks 5-6 bottles per day, depending on if she is at daycare or at home. It’s funny, at daycare she eats about every 3 hours, and at home she eats about every 4 hours. I was worried about it for awhile, trying to get daycare to extend her eating schedule so it would comply with home, but I’m giving up. She seems happy with it, and so who cares? I think it relates to her nap schedules. At daycare she doesn’t nap as well or as long, so she is hungrier quicker and wants to eat more often. We have started solids, and she has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas, pears, peaches, sweet potatoes, squash, and green beans. She has good days and bad. Before she got the stomach bug, she was starting to eat like a champ, but we have definitely regressed with all the sickness. So we try every day with a little food, but most days she doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. Daycare seems to be a little more successful with it that me, so I figure I’ll just let her figure that out at daycare, and then once she likes eating, do more at home.

Milestones
Alex has been rolling over, every which way, for months, but she hasn’t yet figured out that she could move somewhere by rolling over. She is still very immobile, which is just fine with me – nothing is baby proofed! She’s starting to sit up for longer periods of time – she can go a minute or two without toppling over. And she definitely prefers sitting up to being on her back! She plays constantly, always wants to have something in her hands, which then means it must go in her mouth. We play the game, “Does this go in my mouth?” And yes, everything goes in her mouth… No teeth yet, but I have a feeling it’s coming, as everything must be gummed. It’s very easy to get Alex to smile, but she’s not a big laugher. Occasionally she’ll give you a little chuckle, or if something is really funny, a squeal. But most of the time she’s quiet, but will have a huge grin on her face.

Favorites
 Alex loves her bath time. She takes a bath most nights in her new bath chair, which is very nice for sitting in the tub. About once a week, I take a bath with her in the big tub, and we practice floating, and dunking, which doesn’t seem to faze her. I took her into a friend’s pool for the first time last week, and she loved it! She had the best time, just chilling out and observing the other kids. Daddy bought her a jumper, and she thinks that’s the best thing ever! She can sit in there, and jump for a long time, all by herself. But her favorite thing is her two brothers – the dogs. Her face lights up whenever she sees Kodiak or Jackson, and they are starting to figure out that she can be fun too. Yesterday I had her strapped in her bouncy chair on the couch, and she saw Kodiak walking by. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, and she leaned over the side to grab him. He stopped and she patted his head and grabbed his hair for a couple minutes, and it seemed like both really enjoyed it! This is their first real interaction when nobody else was involved! It was so cute seeing them – I know they’ll always be good friends.