Ellen at 6 Months -

Six months old! My girl is half a year now. I don’t even want to talk about it. But I do. She is really amazing and getting more so each day. Here are some of the things Ellen is up to this month:

Ellen is trying to wave now. Every time I enter or leave a room, I make sure I say, “Hi!” or “Bye-Bye!” and wave at her. She loves to try and copy my wave. It’s not perfected yet, but I bet by seven months she’ll be a pro.

One of the most difficult things we dealt with this month was Ellen’s first cold. She was getting a bit stuffed up a few weeks ago, and I thought maybe it was just the air in the apartment. Nope. Our poor gal had the runniest nose and a cough that made me cry. She had the most pathetic little cry. We hunkered down on the couch for a few days together and watched movies and ate. We stayed in out PJs and napped a lot. The doctor told us to just keep feeding her, use a cool mist humidifier at night, and rinse her nose with a saline solution. In about 10 days, she was back up and smiling just like her normal self. I feel stronger for having gone through it, and I’m ready for the next one…as long as it’s not too soon!

Mike is pretty excited this month because Ellen learned to say “dadadadada.” So, we have a pretty good guess at what her first word is going to be, and Mike is doing a lot of coaching. But, here’s what I don’t get: I carry her for nine months and endure all of the whoas of pregnancy, go through 22 hours of labor and push her out of me, deal with all of the fantastic after birth medical issues, breastfeed around the clock, and stay home with her all day, and her first word is going to be “Dada”? Really? Ok.

Ellen still loves blowing bubbles, and thinks it’s pretty funny when she can get you right in the face. Especially when she is eating and can spray milk all over you. Sassy girl.

Ellen also got a high chair this month. Right now, she is using it as a play chair. We put her in it with the tray and put all her favorite toys on it (her picnic basket, Sassy letters, Melissa the Monkey, Sophie the giraffe, nesting cups and her picture book), and then put them back on the tray after she throws them all on the ground.

Thanks to Aunt Liz and our friend Lisa, we can’t get these songs out of our head:

Ellen loves to turn the pages of her favorite books now. These include Melissa the Monkey (from the dollar store…go figure), Hand Hand Finger Thumb, and her picture book.

One of the biggest milestones she reached is sitting up! Ellen can sit all on her own now, and she is so much happier for it! She loves when I put her on the ground with a bunch of toys around her. It just tickles her pink. She will still get excited every once in a while and throw herself backwards, but she doesn’t cry at all. She just looks up and smiles. I love this sitting up phase too. It is so nice to not have to drag around some sort of contraption to hold her in while I am cooking or cleaning or anything. We have so many baby containers around here it’s silly. Now she is all on her own, and it’s liberating!

Ellen picked up the habit of scratching and pinching while she is eating now. Keep in mind we breastfeed. Yeah.

Luckily, she has her six month appointment coming up in a bit, and the doctor is going to talk to us about solid foods! I know Ellen is going to love this because she is so interested in all of our meals these days. She grabs for our glasses and bowls and tries to pull them on the ground. She puts her hands in our drinks. She loves to smell whatever we are eating, and sometimes, she will lunge for it! We have been putting breastmilk in a bowl and letting her eat it from a spoon. She just thinks it’s the greatest.

Finally, Mike and I are trying to figure out this whole bed time thing. We aren’t fans of putting Ellen on a strict schedule, but at the same time, she is running us ragged and needs some routine so we can have some sanity. Thanks to a lot of my friends and family, we came up with a plan that we currently have in action. It involves starting to put her down to sleep an hour before we’d like her in bed. We change her, read her a book and feed her. We make sure the lights are dimmed during all of this. Afterward, Mike rocks her to sleep, and she sleeps in her own crib. Yes, people. We did it. I finally put Ellen in her own room. I didn’t enjoy it the first night (this past Friday), but after she slept better than normal, I couldn’t complain anymore. As a matter of fact, she is in bed right now, and it is 9:00pm! You guys, she normally goes to bed at midnight! Here’s hoping she doesn’t wake up for the day at 3am…Anyway, we feel like real parents now…making decisions and all that kind of stuff.

So, that’s what Ellen has been up to this month. What have you been up to? Tell me in the comment section below.