Dear Edie,

It looks as though your 6 month birthday will always be a bit elusive since there IS no February 30th. So we'll just call the last day of February your half birthday, shall we? Which means that today you are half of a year old! It is almost impossible to remember what our lives were like without you in them.

Every night we try to eat dinner at the kitchen table with you in your high chair. You watch us eat while playing with a giant plastic serving spoon that I'm pretty sure you love more than you love me. On Tuesday this week we get to start you on table foods, which will be a big adventure for all of us! For now, you're still getting a combination of bottles and breastfeeding, but that won't last much longer. For the last week or so of this month, you've lost a bit of your appetite for nursing, which has coincided nicely with my desire to wean, so I think by the end of this coming month, you may have transitioned to a diet of table foods and formula.

This month was a roller coaster in the sleep department for you, but things do seem to be getting better. I was starting to think you'd be a cat napper forever, but your naps are starting to condense and are getting longer. You fall asleep easily each night around 8pm and (on average) wake about 3 times per night to eat. You do throw us for the weekly loop by waking up 6 times in one night and then on the flip side you periodically give us a good 12 hours of sleep and only wake once in the middle. You are particularly hard to put down in your crib after we feed you in the middle of the night. You will be out cold in my arms and then the second I lay you in your crib, you wake up and writhe around fussing until I pick you back up and start all over. I guess you like to keep us on our toes.

Your Dad puts you to sleep almost every night and you and he have developed a routine of chugging a bottle around 7:15pm, then rocking out HARD to the Black Rebel Motorcycles sing "Beat The Devil's Tattoo" and then promptly transitioning to bouncing on the yoga ball in your bedroom for a few minutes, which usually knocks you out so hard that I swear we could play the tambourine next to your head without waking you sometimes.

You make lots of noises these days and imitate talking all the time. Blowing raspberries has been a major focus recently and your Dad recently captured this photo of you blowing one that I just love:
When I take a toy away you grunt, reach for it and get angry and I swear if you could talk you'd be saying "MIIINE!". Your favorite toy this month by far is the cat. We call the cat Moose and now when you hear us say "Moose" you turn your head to look for the cat. Unfortunately, the Moose is a little less fond of you than you are of him, but hopefully that will change when you start to respond to my frequent requests of "be gentle".
You still hate rolling over. You know how, you just hate it. Tummy time is alright and you are trying more and more to scooch forward with a combination of kicking really hard and sometimes getting one leg up and under you as if to crawl. While on your back you will twist WAY over to the side to grab a toy, but keep your legs twisted the other way just to keep from having to roll over. The end result is that you have this twisted upper body and stiffly arched back that's sort of ridiculous.

You are one of the most energetic babies I know.

Your legs are constantly on the go. Your Dad thinks you might start a fire the way you rub your ankles together and Katherine suggested that maybe you have Restless Leg Syndrome. Regardless, you love jumping more than anything in the whole world (except maybe the cat. And your plastic spoon). You also love scooting around in a half walk, half hop in the walker your Grandma B bought you.
You like to sit facing out in the stroller and get bored if I take the quiet streets. You prefer the noise of Roosevelt Avenue with its construction, store fronts, and runners with dogs.

You are incredibly social and the first thing everyone says when they meet you is to comment on your big blue eyes. They are pretty enormous and your Dad and I take turns taking credit for them. I'm biased but I really think you are the most adorable baby - funny, giggly, and affectionate - you LOVE rolling around on the couch with me and have started giving real hugs where you hug me around the neck and try to eat my face. Just tonight you laughed so hard at your Dad making sneeze noises that I thought you were going to give yourself a side cramp.
It seems as if we are on the precipice of something new. You are becoming less and less of a baby and more and more of a person - a person with a BIG personality. Which truly is my favorite kind of person.

signing off,
Your Mom