6 Months!

I'm in total disbelief that we're already half way through Penelope's first year of life. I know I sound cheesy, but I don't know how we ever knew happiness before this amazing, beautiful, smart, funny, spunky little girl entered our lives.

Thank you Jesi Leigh Photography for a preview of her 6 month pictures!

Weight: 16 lbs 12 oz, 59th percentile
Height: 26 inches, 52nd percentile

Head Circumference: 44.5 cm, 94th percentile

Biggest Accomplishment This Month: Starting solid foods! She was a little tentative about it at first (and by at first I literally mean the first time she tried...by take two she had become a clean plate club and has remained one every time she eats!) but she is such a big eater now! 

She has yet to reject anything we've tried with her (so far sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, apples, and carrots) and usually gets really mad at us when meal time is over. I swear she would eat the entire fridge in one sitting if we would let her!  She's also very independent and wants to hold the spoon by herself, though I cheat and hold onto the very end so she doesn't notice I'm helping. We have so far *knock on wood* have been keeping up with making all of her food at home (no jars or mixes, only fresh!) which I will do a separate blog post on later to share our favorite recipes. She loves showing her appreciation for mommy's cooking though and she hums/sings/moans the entire timing she's eating every. single. time.

Biggest Struggle This Month: Teething! She's been exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of teething (bad mood, changed sleep patterns, producing even MORE drool then before which I didn't even think was possible) for a couple of weeks now and still those suckers haven't popped through! You can see them in the front of her gums, but it's like they decided to push up just far enough to bug her but not far enough that they'll ever break the surface. Poor baby!

Mommy's Favorite Moment: On Penny's 6 month birthday we took her to get her pictures taken (see a couple of preview shots above) which were a struggle since our awesome timing put the pictures right over her naptime. My favorite moment of the month occurred later that afternoon though after she had gotten some sleep. My friend Kayla had a choir concert at the Paramount and we decided to give it a go bringing Penny to her first live performance. I had no context for how she would do in a dark theater being forced to sit quietly on my lap, but she LOVED it. We walked in a couple minutes late because the line at the ticket counter had been longer than we anticipated, so the music was already going as we stood in the back waiting for a moment between songs to go to our seat. Penny sat and stared mesmerized by the light and the music. Even after we sat down, the only time she really became restless was between songs when the conductor would talk for a while about the songs they were singing. We ended up leaving at intermission only because 1) she had just pooped through her outfit during the end of the first half and we now had the smelly clothes in the diaper bag and 2) though she was greatly enjoying the performance, she was getting a little more vocal with her joy and was starting to chatter and coo during the songs and we didn't want to bother everyone around us. But mommy was so proud of her for not only sitting nicely for so long, but for also her growing appreciation of the arts :-)

Mommy's Least Favorite Moment: This one could also double as another favorite moment because I'm so proud of how big and strong and smart she's getting, but it's also my least favorite because sometimes it is way too fast for me! When I get home from work, I usually let Penny sit in her car seat or exersaucer in the kitchen with me while we sing and I put away dishes. This particular day, she was a little fussy and didn't want to be contained to either and I'm nervous letting her sit on the kitchen floor by herself since we know from experience that it hurts when she falls back onto the tile. I was almost done at this point anyways, so I went and put her in her crib, sitting up in the middle with a couple of toys to play with, while I went and quickly finished up. Literally minutes later, I returned to find her pulling herself up over the edge of the crib! This video doesn't even do it justice. When I first walked in her feet were planted flat on the mattress and she was crouched but practically standing. Needless to say, we lowered her mattress that night the second daddy got home to help.

Daddy's Favorite Moment: Daddy readjusted Penny's stroller a couple of weeks ago so that mommy could take her to the mall with her. It's the first time Penny has ridden in the stroller in a long time, and definitely the first time since she started sitting up so daddy had to adjust the straps and back of the stroller so that she could sit up and see more of the world. To test it, daddy put her in the stroller inside the house and Penny fell in love. To the point that daddy pushed her around the house in the stroller for close to an hour with Penny giggling almost the entire time.

Daddy's Least Favorite Moment: A few weekends ago we took a trip down to the cities to go to Ikea and then go out to dinner with mommy's family. It had been a long day for Penny by the time we got in the car to go home, and although she had fallen asleep in the loud restaurant, she woke up when we put her into the car seat and proceeded to cry all the way from St. Paul to Rogers. We finally pulled over to take her out and try and get her to calm down. Crying turned to screaming when we tried to put her back into the car seat. After a long struggle, we finally decided to take her into Target and walk around with her laying in her infant car seat inside the basket of the cart. This immediately calmed her but still didn't put her to sleep. Since we had now been in Rogers for over 45 min at about 8:30pm and we still had an hour drive home, we plugged our ears and put her back in the car where she instantly started screaming again. Thankfully this time by the time we hit Highway 94 she had fallen asleep, but close to an hour shared between a gas station parking lot and a Target in Rogers in the middle of winter and way past Penny's bed time was daddy's least favorite moment this month.

Six Month Developmental Milestones According to What to Expect in the First Year (highlighted in green Penny has accomplished, highlighted in red she hasn't yet):

"By six months, your baby...should be able to:

*keep head level with body when pulled to sitting

*say "ah-goo" or similar vowel-consonant combinations

...will probably be able to:

*bear some weight on legs when held upright

*sit without support

*turn in the direction of a voice

*razz (make a wet razzing sound)

...may possibly be able to:

*stand holding on to someone or something

*object if you try to take a toy away - Penny does object if you take away her food, not sure if that counts;-) 

*work to get a toy that's out of reach

*pass a cube or other object from one hand to the other

*look for a dropped object

*rake with fingers a tiny object and pick it up in fist

*babble, combining vowels and consonants such as ga-ga-ga, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, da-da-da

*feed self cracker or other finger food - we haven't given her finger foods yet but I'm going to count it since she brings the spoon to her mouth by herself

...may even be able to:

*creep or crawl - I'm going to mark it as not yet even though she does get in the crawling position and can pull herself along every once in a while, but she hasn't legit gotten the hang of it yet I don't think

*pull up to standing position from sitting - she's still in the beginning stages of this but she can do it

*get into a sitting position from stomach

*pick up tiny object with any part of thumb and finger

*say "mama" or "dada" indiscriminately