Six Months

Happy half-birthday to sweet Gracen Rebecca! These have been some of the most joyful months of my life and are going by way too fast!

Measurements:
Height: 26.75 inches (75th percentile)
Weight: 20 pounds (97th percentile)
Head: 42.75 cm (65th percentile)

Eating:
Still nursing on demand with a breakfast and dinner of baby food and one nightly formula bottle. She loves baby food. She has half a jar of fruit mixed with oatmeal in the morning and a full jar of a vegetable for dinner. When I put her in her highchair to eat she starts squealing with delight and will bang her hands on the tray because she is so excited for what's coming.

So far we've introduced pears, apples, peaches, bananas, green beans, carrots, squash and sweet potatoes and she has LOVED them all. I noticed a small rash on her back after introducing bananas so I've taken them away for now. I may try to reintroduce them in the next week since I'm not entirely sure the rash came from the bananas. I guess we will see. We have upped the bedtime bottle to 6 ounces and she sucks it down so quick. She prefers to use the latex gerber nipples and refuses to take the silicone ones. She will take the silicone Medela nipples if she has to. Baby diva.

Sleeping
She goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 p.m. every night. Up until this week she was still waking up around midnight and 5 am for a snack and cuddle but this week she has started sleeping through the midnight snack and waking up around 5 to nurse and back to sleep until 8. HALLELUJAH! Of course now that I wrote that she is sure to start waking at midnight again :)

Gracen is not a napper. She will usually take a catnap in the morning (20-30 mins) and then a longer nap in the afternoon (about an hour) but otherwise is awake all day long. She's too afraid she is going to miss out on the action I guess. Big Sister loves to sleep and still takes 4 hour naps most days so having a baby who doesn't nap is new for me. I really don't mind that she doesn't nap because she is generally content and happy and always easy to lay down at bedtime. Loving the extra mama/baby time.

She doesn't like to be rocked to sleep anymore :( At bedtime she gets a bath, bottle, nurses and then I lay her down in her crib. She usually rolls over to her belly and falls right asleep. The belly sleeping really stressed me out in the beginning and we were constantly sneaking into her room and rolling her over to her back. After several sleepless nights (on our part) and several MILLION rolls to her back we finally decided to just let her sleep that way. There is really no way to keep her on her back now that she is somewhat mobile. That's how she likes to sleep and our sweet little Gracen always knows (and does) what she wants :)

Temperament
She is pretty easy going for the most part. She loves to observe everything and watches every move that Leighton or Amos makes. She has the most adorable smile and one huge dimple that will immediately melt your heart. I can tell she has a sweet spirit and is so loving. She loves her mama SO much and can't help but cry for me if I'm in the room. She almost always wants to be in my arms doing whatever I'm doing. Makes me feel pretty special. Toby had several days off in a row recently and she did become quite a Daddy's girl at that time so right now I'm just enjoying her wanting to be with me.

She definitely still has that temper she was born with. Right now her "tantrum of choice" occurs when a toy doesn't fit in her mouth exactly the way she wants it to. Everything goes into her mouth these days. She babbles all the time and has started screeching when she wants something. It sounds like someone is clearing their throat only a thousand times louder and octaves higher :)

Details
She can roll over (both ways) and sit up. When she's on her belly she pushes herself up so high that she is almost in the crawling position. Gulp. When she sits up she can lean all the way forward to grab a toy and get back into the sitting position. I feel like she is gearing up to crawl which we are definitely not ready for. Hoping she holds off on that for a while.

She doesn't have any teeth but several sleepless nights (and days), grumpiness, drool, drool and more drool lead me to believe it won't be too long. Leighton had two teeth at five months so I figure they are bound to pop through soon :) For now her little gummy grin is perfectly fine with me. I am not exaggerating when I say she is the sweetest baby in the WORLD!

In the morning she will play in her exersaucer for 20 minutes or so while I make breakfast and have coffee but otherwise she prefers to sit up and play with toys. Her favorites right now are Sophie the giraffe, plastic keys, diamond ring and the stuffed coins from her Melissa & Doug purse. She loves anything that makes noise and is always reaching for paper, magazines and her wipes. She is so wiggly which makes changing her diaper a feat this days. Girl has places to go and things to do!

She is quickly outgrowing her FP little lamb swing and has totally outgrown her travel swing. I put her in the travel swing the other day and came back to find her leaning all the way forward trying to escape. Now when I shower she just sits on a blanket in the floor and plays with toys. Such a big girl. She has officially lost all the hair she was born with and seems to be growing new BLONDE locks! The littlest blondie in our bunch :)

Sister Stats
If you couldn't tell by their huge smiles six months is a such a fun age. Gracen continues her streak as being the bigger baby of the two but both smiles could melt a heart in 10 seconds flat :)

Here are Leighton's six months measurements:
Height: 26 inches (55th percentile)
Weight: 18 pounds (85th percentile)

Partners in crime in the making :)