Hey friends!! Today is July 2, 2018 (at least when I wrote this it was) and Miss Penelope Rose turned 6 months old a few days ago. I can’t believe my sweet baby is already halfway through her first year of life. It is going by so fast. We are now in such a fun stage and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
- Penelope is on the move! She now is a pro at rolling over and has mastered the army crawl. These two things combined get her any where she needs to go. Long gone are the days of putting her down and coming back to find her in the same spot. Nowadays it’s more of I put her down, turn to grab a wipe, and turn back to find her on the other side of the room. It is seriously a blast, though. I love seeing her moving around and gaining that independence. She hasn’t quite got up the courage to do a traditional crawl yet. She will get on her hands and knees and will rock back and forth and will even move one knee in towards her chest, but then will just fall. She also loves to get on her hands and knees and then push up on her legs like she is standing, but her upper body is still down. It’s so funny watching her. I know it won’t be long and she will be all over the place.
- You can hear Penelope from a mile away. She no longer is our quiet baby. She has found her voice and loves to let you know it. She will now test out the volume of her voice by screaming until her throat goes dry and she starts coughing. We like to say that she is very expressive in her opinions. She loves to talk all day and is very happy to have conversations with people. Her favorite word still is Dada and she loves to babble all about him. Her other favorite thing right now is to blow raspberries and she isn’t polite about it. She will gladly spit all over you.
- Any and everything goes into her mouth. Penelope will eat anything that you give her. We haven’t introduced solids yet (more on that in the next blog), but everything that comes near her she eats. She just loves to explore the world through taste right now. She doesn’t have any teeth yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if she got some in the next few weeks.
- She has graduated to the stroller and grocery cart. We no longer have to take her infant car seat in and out of the car any more. Penelope can now ride in her stroller or sit in the top part of the grocery cart and she absolutely loves them both. Our daughter is very much a people person and she loves to watch all the activity. Usually when grocery shopping I would wear her, but she was facing me normally so it was harder for her to see out. Both of these new activities allow her to see whats going on and she loves it.
- She is starting to make the connection with baby sign language and what it means. This obviously is only in relation to her routine, but she really is starting to get it. Before I nurse her I always lay her beside me (I am sitting up) and ask if she wants “milk” while doing the sign for milk. She will literally pull herself up to my breast (wish I had that kind of core strength) and start sucking. It is so funny! We also do the sign language for all done. We do this once she is done nursing and really any time she is over something. She is very good at letting us know when she is done with a certain activity. So for instance when she is tired of being in the high chair she will start to get very fussy. So I will walk over and get on her eye level and ask her if she is all done while doing the sign for all done. She will then put her hand in the air (the sign for all done is hands in the air turning front to back) and will stop fussing. I will probably do a whole other post about baby sign language, but it is an amazing tool to use to help babies communicate before they are able to talk. It gives them another tool to say “Hey I am done with this high chair business,” instead of just screaming in the high chair.
- Music and finger play games will win you major brownie points around here. Penelope is growing more and more observant as the days go along. She will now light up when she hears her favorite songs. Some of her favorite right now are her good morning song that I sing to her every morning when she wakes up (Good morning Penelope. I’m so glad to see you. Good morning Penelope. I’m so glad to see you too. Good morning Mama… Good morning Dada…), You Are My Sunshine, The Water Is Wide, Amazing Grace (this song works like magic to stop her from crying especially in the car), Two Little Black Birds, 10 Little Fingers, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and really anything that uses hand movements in the song.
- Her laughter will fill the room. Penelope is now so ticklish and it is one of the best sounds I have ever heard. Her tickle spots right now are her ribs and her inner thighs. She loves for Mamma and Dada to have some vegan baby ribs for dinner. She gets so worked up and will start laughing before you even tickle her. It’s so fun to hear and we love seeing her giggle.
- She has an eye for detail and textures. I have noticed this last week that she is very focused on the details of items now. Just this past Sunday she spent ten minutes just looking at herself in the mirror. It was as if she was studying this other person and every detail of them. She was so focused that she wasn’t even making any noise. She also does this with things like her book of baby faces or her animal book where she can feel the animal’s (fake) fur or just something as simple as the button on my shirt. It’s amazing to see how all of a sudden she is noticing and studying items that have been there the past six months, but she hadn’t noticed.
- Her tripod sitting game is on-point! Penelope hasn’t quite figured out how to sit unassisted yet, but she can sit in the first stage of sitting which is called tripod sitting. This is where she sits on her bum and leans forward with both hands planted on the ground. She has a pretty good grasp on this and honestly only started doing it well a few days ago. Something that is so amazing about baby development is that they will literally go from not being able to do something one day to being a pro at it the next. Something just clicks in them and they figure it out. It’s a blast to watch. So far she will sit unassisted for just a few seconds before falling over, but I know it won’t be to long before she is able to do that. Sitting for her isn’t something she is to fond of right now though. She would much rather be on her tummy scooting herself around to get to all the fun things in her line of sight.
- She is gaining independence. This one is tough for Mom to admit, but she really is starting to get more independent. She now is perfectly ok with being put on the floor with her toys and being able to play on her own. She will turn around and look for you from time to time to make sure you are still there, but she doesn’t need constant entertainment. I love that she is gaining this newfound independence, but of course it is hard on me to let her grow in this area.
I am so proud of the little person she is becoming and in all the ways she is growing and developing. There is something amazing about watching your child learn new things and reach new milestones. I love to just sit back and watch her as she army crawls to a new toy, picks it up, and studys it to figure out what excatly it does and how it works. I love watching her start to copy us with sign language and really understand what is happening. We couldn’t be more proud of our sweet baby and we are so excited for what the next six months will bring. Our next adventure is just around the corner.
Baby Dust To All,
Cynthia
Joy Comes In The Morning 