Six Month Snapshot: Alexandra

We made it half a year, six months, outside the womb, together, and baby Alex had her very first half birthday, recently!  How is our baby Alex already six months old!  So much has happened this month!  The theme for this month summed up in one word is transition.  Baby Alex is changing all the time.  In fact, she got her first two teeth, which are coming in, the two located in the lower middle of her mouth, which we have affectionately named, “chomper” and “pointy!”  She was quite fussy during the later part of December, just prior to her teeth cracking through the gums.  Her sleep was pretty erratic, during this time, and we were both pretty tired, and we still are tired, imagine that!  Her sleep is slowly improving, but it is still erratic with the teething. The drool is also quite real with the teething!  We really love these bibs, which help preserve her clothes during teething due to all of the drool!  It is hard to believe she will have 16 teeth by the time she is two!  We are wiping these little teeth stumps (“chomper” and “pointy”) daily, per my dentist’s recommendation, to help keep them clean!  Our baby girl is eating solids for mostly for dinner this month after really not liking the rice cereal, and she also is not a fan of the oatmeal!  So far, she likes squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, mango, avocado, and pears!

She has also moved to her ‘big girl’ stroller seat on her Bugaboo Fox!  We finally have the swaddle down for sleeping, it only took us six months to figure this out!  We use two swaddles concurrently: this arm swaddle and the Ollie Swaddle!  Baby Alex cannot escape wearing these two swaddles, finally, which helps prevent her from waking up!  We hope that we get down to only getting up one time a night or not getting up at all during the night, but the teething has not made things easy at night, recently.  She still really loves to roll around on her tummy and she can spin and roll around like a pro.  She can get into the crawling position, and we anticipate her to be mobile soon, which is a scary prospect!  We already started to baby proof our home.  This month our baby girl also started going to her play school a few days a week and, so far, it is going well!  She did, however, get sick, with a fever, for the first time, which was difficult, likely due to teething.  She is doing and feeling better now, thankfully.  During Alex’s sixth month, we also celebrated her first Christmas and New Years together!  We had a great time together celebrating with friends!  Alex also experienced her first snow recently!  She continues to grow and grow!  We are biased, but we think she just gets more beautiful each month!  We go to the pediatrician later this week for her sixth-month check-up; and we hope at, some point, she slows down with her physical growing!  She is very long and we are going through clothes like they are literally going out of style!  She is wearing mostly 18 month sized clothes, depending on how the clothes fit!  Victory is still doing well in her ‘big sister’ role!  She loves greeting Alex each morning while licking her from head to toe, a morning ritual, which we have coined, “Victory doing her morning rounds!”  We have some evening time, mostly at night with Victory, and I think she really enjoys this alone time with us!  We love our girls and we are embracing it all, and we feel so blessed beyond words!

A few highlights from Alex’s sixth month include:

-this arm swaddle has really helped us with sleeping during the day and night!  I highly recommend it!

-the teething has not made Alex too happy!  As a result, she has been up a lot at night the past few weeks, which has not been fun for anyone!

-she still loves to grab her feet and grab anything in sight and put it in her mouth!  We are still using the teething glove!  She has managed to get into Victory’s water bowl recently!  We have taken the first steps to baby proofing our home.

-she makes lots of sounds and she says, “agee;” “hey;” and “atoy toy.”  We have no idea what these words mean, but she repeats them!

-she loves to give her vocal cords a work out, at times, while screeching quite loudly!

-she is learning to swallow without sucking first!  We are working on introducing more types of foods, each week!

-she loves to give Victory treats!  We open up Alex’s hand and then Victory comes over and licks the treat from the palm of Alex’s hand, and Alex thinks it is the funniest thing, as she chuckles and smiles!  Alex does love to stroke Victory’s fur and she does not seem to mind Victory’s daily licks all over he body!

-she loves to play and she loves to be read to!  We are a fan of these books!

-she still finds the mirror very captivating!

-she has learned how to spit and thinks it is fantastic!  Sometimes, we even find her spitting in her crib in the mornings and she thinks it is so funny!

-she is sometimes holding her bottle on her own!

-on a daily basis Doug asks Alex where she is hiding her cookies, which is very important, based upon this video!

-she is still very alert and observant!  She is still going to the gym with us sometimes in the evenings, and she seems to like the care center, so far, when our favorite care provider, Lynn, is there to care for her, so we can get a work out in several times a week!  We plan to take her swimming soon, when it gets a bit warmer outside!

-she still loves her Ergo, and we have done some walks together, despite the colder temperatures!

-she still loves her swing, and she takes at least one nap in it daily, typically!  (I am not sure what we are going to do when she outgrows her swing!)

 

A few highlights I would like to remember:

-photographing and making videos of Alex — I want to remember and capture as much as I can!

-enjoying our first Christmas and New Year together as a family of four!

-greeting Alex in her nursery in the mornings!  One of my favorite times, and Victory always joins us!

-loving on her long, velvety soft and smooth body!

-loving how she smells after a bath!

-loving how her hair is so fluffy and soft against my skin!  It keeps growing!

-loving her chuckle, which is so adorable.

-watching her ride on her Daddy’s shoulders around the house, which she loves!

-watching her eat her first foods, which has been fun to witness!

-watching her greet Victory in the morning and her Daddy in the evenings during the week after work!

-watching her explore her environment!

-remembering that she loves (prefers) to be naked, in her diaper, at home!

-remembering her sticking her tongue out to feel her chompers!

-remembering how peaceful she looks while she is sleeping!

-remembering how she likes to dance while holding our hands to keep her balance!

-watching her meeting and interacting with new people — right now, she is open to other people and does not seem to mind being in the company of others!

-remembering her getting sick for the very first time.

-giving her a bath without her being so upset, although she still is not loving bath time!

-enjoying our morning time consisting of: play time and story tine together, a time when baby Alex is very animated and she is generally in a really good mood, and now Victory joins us, which makes it even better!

-rocking Alex to sleep at night in her swaddle!

-marveling at her smile — she has the most wonderful smile that melts our hearts!

-admiring her eyes — they are the prettiest deep blue eyes I have ever seen!  We think she is going to keep those beautiful blue eyes!

-loving her long, dark eye lashes!

-enjoying the beautiful morning light in Alex’s nursery each morning!

-staying in our pajamas for days, not leaving the house!

-knowing how much our little Victory affectionately loves her ‘little sister!’

-watching Alex play with her Daddy!

-having our first real date night this month, which we hope to do one to two times a month!

-knowing on the days that I feel totally exhausted, that I will someday really miss these early days, and I need to remind myself, at times of this fact.

-still asking myself what will I miss about this time of my life when it’s all gone?  This question keeps everything in perspective.

-most of all, we are cherishing getting to be Alex’s parents!

Doug and I are very grateful for our little girl and our little family!  We feel so fortunate.  We look forward to seeing Alex’s little personality continue to develop and unfold.  Below are a few images: Alex’s monthly portrait; Alex and Victory’s monthly portrait; followed by photos of Alex throughout this month; and some iphone images during her sixth month with us!  You can read our birth story along with viewing images from Alex’s birth here; you can read Alex’s one month snapshot here; her two month snapshot here; her three month snapshot here; her four month snapshot here; and her five month snapshot here.

It has been quite a bit of work keeping up with Alex’s monthly photos; printing of the images; creating her photo book for her first year; creating blog posts; and writing Promptly Journal entries.  However, this time will only happen once, and we want to record and remember it, so we are going to keep going with this process through the first year, where so many changes occur, sometimes seemingly over night!

 

 

 

 

You can see the extraordinary change in only six months, below!

 

 

 

 

You can see the change over a six month period, immediately below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few iphone images from this month!