grade eight: 6 Months

Elliot is 6 months old!

She is half of a year old already. She was born last year. In 6 more months, she'll be 1 year old. She's growing up too quickly. How the heck did this happen?!

Those are the thoughts that have been on my mind lately. How is it that my little person could change so much in just 6 months? Here are the updates on our little lady:

Ellie eats a variety of baby food. She loves pears, peaches, bananas, squash, and apples. Her least favorite flavors are green beans and prunes. (Can you blame her?)

She still hates rice cereal.

But! She loves, and I mean LOVES, her sippy cup. She's such a big girl.

She says "hi" now! Well, sorta :) She can copy our inflections and repeats the word when we say it to her. This started whenever she saw my mom and now Ellie always greets her in that way. Grandma loves it. (Oh, and she's still a pro at saying "dada")

She can sit! She mastered this skill seemingly overnight. One day she was wobbly and only lasting a minute or so, and the next she's sitting and playing by herself. I am so proud :)

She wears 9 month clothing.

Elliot is still working on rolling from her back to her tummy. She twists and rolls but hasn't quite figured out how to lift her chest and simultaneously pull that arm out from under her body.

Speaking of twisting...this girl is a wiggler now! She used to sit so nice and still while you changed her clothes or diapers. Well those days are long gone.

Recently, she's been "singing" along with me when I put her to bed. It melts my heart. She stares at me with those big, blue eyes and hums and coos quietly through her binkie. Best thing ever.

This girl still loves her car seat. She gets so excited when we put her in it and as soon as she's buckled in, she immediately grabs both sides like she's sitting in a little throne.

Her favorite part of the day? Bath time! Look at that chubby little body! I could just eat her up.

She hates toys that vibrate. It's kind of sad but also pretty hilarious. She has a bee that lights up and plays music that she loves. However, it also has a button that makes the toy vibrate. She'll be playing happily with it and then accidentally bump the vibrate button and then flip out. Her eyes get huge and she immediately starts to whine and cry.

Speaking of things she's scared of...this girl has been showing signs of stranger danger lately. There has been more than one time in the past couple of weeks where when someone goes to hold her she looks at their face, bursts into tears, and then twists around to look for me or daddy. Maybe we need to socialize more.

I'm thinking it's about time to ween this kid off swaddling. Which is a shame really, because she sleeps so well when she's swaddled. She just doesn't last for long periods of time before she works her arms loose and then wakes herself up by scratching her face or something. She's just getting too big and too strong.

Another night-time issue we've been having...this girl won't sleep. I always thought we lucked out when Ellie was a newborn because she slept through the night from day one. She's been a champion sleeper until just recently. Now all of a sudden she wakes up around 3 times each night. Maybe she's teething, maybe it's a growth spurt, or maybe she's just making up for being such an awesome newborn. Either way, we're all a little sleep deprived over here.

This baby loves to read. She gets super excited and kicks her legs when I pull her onto my lap and grab a book. She's really good at paying attention to all of the words and pictures but then as soon as I take time to turn a page...those legs start up again! The anticipation of the next page gets her every time :)