– She officially reached 6 months! Yay!

– New foods include broccoli and bread. She liked both, and got broccoli ev.er.y.where. For those playing along at home, the current list is:

• bagel
• avocado
• sweet potato
• apples
• carrots
• banana
• applesauce
• broccoli
• bread

– Army crawl! She can now move herself, rather slowly and with a great deal of effort, across the room. Mostly she employs this skill to acquire her foam bath toys, although she got pretty annoyed when Dad kept moving his pizza out of her reach

– New sleep record: 6.5 hours (which was simultaneously glorious and painful for me!)

– Thumb sucking. I’ve spotted her a couple times with her thumb in her mouth. It may have been coincidence. I gave her a pacifier anyway. She’ll now chew on it. She hasn’t figured out which end goes in her mouth (she mostly uses that part as a handle) but hey, it’s a start.

– She is also definitely now afraid of our neighbors. She’ll tolerate one of them, if I’m holding on to her, but she cries every time she sees the other. We’re not sure why, but I think it’s a fear of strangers combined with the fact that Dad’s pretty much the only guy she ever spends time with.

– Sitting up without leaning on her hands

– Mom forgot to post this so who knows what else!

– New foods include applesauce and banana.

– Mobility! She has discovered how exciting it is to move! She isn’t creeping or crawling yet, but she’s getting pretty darned good at rolling herself where she wants to go! The days of putting her down in one spot and coming back in 5 minutes and her still being there are over. The other day I put her down to go to the bathroom, and she started crying about halfway through… I came back and she’d wedged herself under the entertainment center.

– First cat scratch :(. She apparently grabbed Chen in a way that hurt Chen, and dad didn’t notice in time. Chen scratched her right on the cheek. It’s a small scratch, but still :(. Right now she can’t control her touch but we’re still teaching her to be gentle with all living things.

– First diaper rash. I thought maybe we’d be the only people to magically avoid diaper rashes at all. Zinc oxide creams didn’t seem to do anything for it, but plenty of diaperless time and plenty of CJ’s BUTTer seems to be clearing it up.

– There’s something else big but I can’t remember what.

– she has definitely got the hang of sweet potato! This weekend we introduced honeycrisp apples, nuked until soft. She kept making faces at the apple, I think it was maybe too tart a choice, but she kept going back for it so I don’t think she disliked the tartness of it.

– this isn’t exactly her milestone, but dad and I went on our first date since she was born! We decided not to talk about J at all, and had a wonderful time just chatting and laughing and eating as much meat as we could fit (we went to a Brazilian churrascaria place). It was wonderful to reconnect with each other. J had a rougher time and wouldn’t stay asleep. She has a cold and her cough kept waking her and mom wasn’t there to nurse and comfort her. I am grateful we were able to get out but I do feel bad for my little munchkin.

– fear of strangers. She is definitely beginning to be wary of people she doesn’t know. Not yet afraid, but definitely reserved.

– Grabbing for food. She’s been grabbing for everything and sticking it in her mouth recently, but she definitely makes a concerted effort to get food mom or dad is eating. This led to a few instances of her eating foods we did not intend to feed her. A bite of bagel, and a couple sucks on Mom’s swedish fish (I let her have the second one because it was so cute)

– First (intentional) solid food (that she actually ate)! Last week’s avocado was fun but she didn’t exactly eat it. This week there was the far more fun steamed sweet potato. She played with it for about 10 minutes and it wasn’t until dad started eating a bowl of stew that she actually tried eating some. Maybe it was coincidence, but I swear that she started with eating because we were. Once I saw her watching dad eat I remembered that you’re supposed to eat with baby to make baby led weaning most successful, so I ate some of her (gross, slimy, cold) sweet potato. Once she got the hang of it she had so much fun! I’ll have to figure out how to embed the videos from my iPad. For now here’s a link:

sweet potato video

– Lunging at things. She’s started throwing herself towards things she wants to grab, regardless of how secure her current position. Carrying her in one arm is pretty much over.

– Her ability to stand is continuing to improve, and it continues to be one of her favorite things! She can now stand with someone holding her hands! Only for a minute at a time, but I think she enjoys the sense of freedom it gives her. The step-step game is also a favorite.