Half Birthday

This young lady would like to invite you to her tent party! And also, to wish her a happy half birthday. Adele turned six months on Sunday and we marked the occasion in three ways.

Oh, by the way, she can sit up on her own now. Did I mention that?

First, we moved her into her crib! Cold Turkey; our strategy was, "Let's see what happens if we just put her in the crib to sleep from now on." It could well have been a disaster.

Fortunately, Adele's sweet nature prevailed. She is actually sleeping better in her crib than she was in her familiar cosleeper. After the first two nights, when she went first six and then seven hours between feeds, I thought we were on the fast track to sleeping through the night. Not so fast, as it turns out. Still, it's been at best, miraculously better and at worst, no worse than before. And I can go into my own room after 7pm and before 7:30am and turn the light on! I'm already matching my outfits better.

Bless. Her. Heart.

The second way we marked Adele's half birthday was with the introduction of solid foods! Oatmeal and applesauce, to be exact. Her attitude so far has been one of cautious curiosity.

I'll just chew this, shall I, while you amuse yourself stirring whatever that is?

What? Why is everyone looking at me?

What in the heck was that? Wha- Mum?

Why are you doing this to me?

She's learning to enjoy it. In small amounts. I remind myself and other parents: Food for fun until one. She's got time to get this down.

On the M-man side of things, Miles definitely noticed that this weekend was NOT about him and has been correspondingly attention hungry. He designed and placed this hat upon his head when we weren't looking. This is one of the more benign attention-grabbing moves he's done. We had hoped he would sleep better in his room if his sister was there. We feared Adele's crying in her new environment would disturb him. As Gandalf put it, " ...Both my fear and my hope proved ill-founded." He has been less willing to sleep in his room than before, but it's not due to her crying, fortunately. Just M. being M. Hope with us that he will learn to sleep better, and thus earn a whole calender full of stickers. :-)

Finally, I spent Sunday doing a rather large scale baby clothing transfer. Onward to 6-9 month clothes! There has to be a word for that extreme cloying sentiment one feels when putting away clothing one's child has outgrown. It gets me every time, an inescapable reminder that we can't prevent time from passing... however much we may want to.

I'm trying to become the kind of person that puts on the dress and makes the day a holiday, instead of waiting for a holiday appropriate for the dress.

Today's holiday dress: (Where did it come from? Andrea? Ashley? I couldn't tell you!)

Headdress from EeYaya.

Jon wishes you to know that he is not responsible for her outfit.

Adele seemed to approve of Mummy's choice, however.

There is nothing like a small child to teach you, over and over: Be present. Watch closely. You will not get this day back. Each day shows us a different scene, with different possibilities, and though we can't repeat it or remain in it one additional hour, we can watch it closely so that at least we can say that we ourselves saw it happen.