My little ginger

There is almost too much to say.

You spent last week with me in Richmond, hanging with your Auntie Sharon and her three labs and one cat.  You loved the cat.  You now think you are a lab.

You are wholly delighted with nearly everything, and you show it by a wild little giggle.  You pound the table at dinner.  You still smile with your whole body, as if you are about to be split in two with happiness.

And your crawling - you are so FAST.  You now follow me around as best you can, and whenever I stop, you pull yourself into a standing position and look at me, expectantly, as if to say, "What next, mama?"

"Mamamamamama" is your favorite word.

Every day, you are amazing.  Every day, I am grateful to be your mom.

Sweet September

My dear girl,

You are deep in the midst of the longest nap I think you've ever taken (2 1/2 hours and still going strong).  It's been a weekend of long naps and early-morning wakefulness, as well as general, low-grade fussiness when you're awake.  After weeks of easy-going, independent delightfulness, these past couple days have stood in marked contrast.  As a result, I'm sure there's something going on in your brain - the book says you're entering the "fussy period" of your next wonder week, and I believe it.

Either that, or you're teething - but we've been saying that for months every time you're fussy, and no teeth yet.

You were just different yesterday.  You didn't want to be put down; you didn't want to play by yourself for very long; you had no interest in crawling about and exploring as you've done the past few weeks.  You just fussed.  You also, both yesterday morning and this morning, started waking at 4:00, with bouts of intermittent fussing.  Yesterday, you took two two-hour naps.  And today you've basically slept the morning away.

I know this next developmental stage will bring new and wonderful things.  This morning, for example, instead of crawling you pushed yourself into a crouch and tried to balance - what looked like the first nascent step to standing unaided.  So maybe your brain is working on walking right now.  I know we won't see the evidence for a while, but something's got to be happening to cause the sleepiness/fussiness/wakefulness.

One day, you'll read this and be amazed that I could spend paragraphs cataloguing minute changes in your demeanor.  And then, maybe a few years later, you'll have your own wee baby, and you'll learn what it feels like.

You're awake now, I think.  As always, I love you to distraction.

7 Months

You're seven months old (as of last Friday), and you are so much fun.  Your favorite thing to do right now is STAND UP.  BY YOURSELF.  You'll pull yourself up, then let go, wobble for a second, and plop back down on your bottom.

But no, listen.  Once more, with feeling.  You are STANDING UP.

Look how sweet you are in these photos.  This is you, all the time.

The last couple weeks have been good ones.  You rarely fuss.  You are pleased with everything.  You are so happy to be crawling and moving around, and I love watching you crawl toward me or your daddy with the hugest smile on your face.  You are so much fun.

When I get home at the end of the day, your face erupts with smiles.

This is an amazing age.

Your First August

I don't want to forget any of this.

This morning, you slept on my chest after nursing in bed with me.  You looked exactly as you looked as a newborn.  How many more of these early-morning nursing sessions do we have left?  I start work next week, and I won't have the same the leisure to snuggle you in bed as we both wake up.  We'll have to carve out other spaces for us to have this time.  I will miss it.

Darkness keeps me from taking a photo of you sleeping at night, so I'm having to store it up in my memory.  Each night, I steal into your room before I go to bed, and I stand next to your crib and watch you sleep.  You sleep on your side, bundled into your baby sleeping bag, a tiny bit of soft pink security blanket clutched in your arms.  Your head is such a small peanut in a great big crib.

There are times my heart constricts, like when you wake before your 4 am feeding, and I lie in bed listening to you cry in your crib, trying to put yourself back to sleep.  I am never sure if I'm doing the right thing.  Tonight I fed you at 4:15, but you were not ready for the feeding to end, and woke up shortly after I put you back in your crib.  I should have let you work it out, but you cried and cried, and I just couldn't take it anymore.  I picked you up and held you as you whimpered; I hope you could understand that I love you more than life.  You calmed when I let you nurse, and went back to sleep easily after that.

You will only be this tiny once, and already I feel this time slipping away from me.  I never want to forget the way your arms monkey around my neck when I hold you.  Or how last week you discovered you could blow raspberries into my shoulder.  Or how, when I sing to you before your naps, you watch me with huge, still eyes.  The way you light up when your daddy walks into the room.  The soft sweetness of your baby feet.  Your silk-fine hair.

You are 6 months old

Last night, you slept all night in your crib... not your carseat (as you've slept for the past six months) but your crib.  A milestone.

This past week, you began using consonants (e.g., "mamamamama") when you talk to yourself.

Yesterday, you did some big, purposeful rolling from your back to your front.

You are continuing to sit up so well, although now you're leaning forward, trying to get into crawling position.  You can't quite make it, thought, without tipping over, and so in the past week you've face-planted into sand, rocks, and hard floors.  Some crying ensues.

You are eating solid foods now (and have been for several weeks).  Peaches are your favorite, and it's amazing to watch you grab a piece of peach and stuff it into your mouth to suck out the juice and pulp.  You've also tried plums, avocado, banana, zucchini, carrots, potatoes (boiled, french fried, and mashed), pancakes, toast, oatmeal, red pepper, corn, and pasta.  Each new food is a discovery for you.

You've not been particularly happy these last few weeks.  The introduction of solids upset your tummy for a bit and led to a lot of night wakings, which grew into a nasty habit, which meant none of us were getting much sleep.  I think we may have turned a corner, though.

Your hair is getting longer and is a beautiful reddish blonde.

My beautiful girl.  You are funny and opinionated, intense and intensely smart.  I love seeing your personality emerge.

A Baby and Her Dog...

Contemplating the mysteries of the universe...

Look at you, sitting up!

Bonus photo: you, at the end of your nearly two-hour nap the other day.

This summer is going by quickly, and you're growing up so, so fast.