Author: Sarah

Dear Anna,

Today you are six months old. Half a year! Which means we’re halfway to needing to throw a fabulous first birthday party!

Let’s see. In the past month you’ve become quite proficient in the rolling over department. You can roll over both ways, over and over, to get wherever you’d like to go. Combine that with your ability to pivot on your tummy, and inch yourself forward by sheer determination (or luck, I can’t tell which) and not much is out of your reach at this point. You’d spend half the day rolling around on the floor if we didn’t have anywhere else to be.

Speaking of places to be… Officially, you’ve outgrown your infant seat. You still have an inch of shell above your head, though, so we’re researching which seat we’ll be getting for you and not worrying about replacing it today. But I can’t believe you’re already so big. (I don’t know why I can’t believe it, Carolyn stopped fitting in that seat at six months too. I think I just can’t believe you’re six months old already!)

You aren’t babbling yet, but you aaaah and oooh and screech all the time. And you’re starting to play games: if I drape a cloth diaper over your face and say “where’s Anna?” you’ll yank it down and start giggling when I say “peekaboo!”

Solids are…not going well. You seemed to like the avocado well enough, but then rice cereal you just outright rejected. And sweet potatoes were OK for one day but you refused to let us feed you any the next. Actually, it’s the letting us feed you part I think you object to. If I put the spoon on the highchair tray and let you pick it up, you put it right in your mouth and eat the food that’s on it. I don’t know. The butternut square you tried this weekend was apparently tolerable, but you haven’t discovered a love of eating yet. We’re just sort of going slowly and seeing what happens at this point. I imagine that you won’t be on an all-milk diet when you go to college, so it’s all good.

So, six months here already, and so far you’ve learned who the important players are in your life (Carolyn seems to have hung the moon, and the dogs are way up there in terms of entertainment value), you’ve figured out how to move your body more or less the way you want to, you’re very adept at charming everyone around you with your brilliant smiles and your mad scientist hair, and you’ve pretty much fit yourself into our lives as though you were always here. In the next six months you’ll likely be crawling, maybe even walking, probably learning to say a word or two and understanding many more of the words we say. It’s amazing how much such a little human learns and grows in such a short amount of time. I’m honored to be able to watch it happen.

Love, Mommy