Update: 6 months!

(Photo) Happy day to me.

Dear Ad-rock*,

You're six months old! Hooray for you. You weigh 18.1 pounds and you're 26ish inches long--and just six months ago you were small enough to fit inside of my uterus. It's a crazy crazy world.

This past month, your father has been on leave and has spent many hours entertaining you. I love that he's able to see you discover new things. We've worked out a little schedule, the three of us, and I'm going to miss him when he starts back to work. You and I get up around 8am: you get a diaper change, I brush my teeth and then we head to the kitchen where you take up residence in your high chair and push around Cheerios while I make and eat breakfast. At 8:45/9am it's time for another diaper change and play time on the floor or in the exersaucer. At 9:30, you nurse and doze off while I watch Molto Mario and your dad gets up. At 10, your dad and I watch the Gilmore Girls and rock-paper-scissor over who has to change your poopy diaper. Then at 11:30 it's time for your morning bowl of oatmeal, followed by our morning walkie--half way through that you doze off. The afternoons are more flexible, with a loose schedule of eating, playing and napping. Dinner is served by 6pm, at which point you enjoy fruits or veggies and a zwieback or biscuit. After dinner is evening walkies, story time, bath time, and finally bedtime.

Now that you're rolling all over the place, putting you down in your bed awake only prolongs the screaming protest that precedes sleep. And I have to ask, what is it about sleep that you find so horrifying? I read about all of these babies that love sleep, and I wonder what knowledge they possess that you missed out on. I fear that sleep shall be a hurdle for the rest of your life. Sleep seems to be the only thing that keeps you from making the one noise that shall end all noises; the dreaded baby grunt. Eeennnnnnnnhhg. Eeennnnnnnhhg. Eeennnnnhhg. It's hard to convince us that you're not tired when you're alternately grunting, yawning, and rubbing your eyes. Nice try, though.
Eeennnnnhhg.
The worst noise in the world.

Most of the time, however, you're the funniest baby I know. The strangest things get you all excited and cause the happy-baby-arm-banging dance: sitting on the kitchen floor, the cats (doing--or not doing--anything), pictures of turtles, otters, and dolphins. You also get all excited and squirmy when your dad first gets up in the morning. And why wouldn't you? He's the guy that makes you shriek with laughter. The other day he got you to say banana, by looking at you and repeating BA-NA-NA over and over. You haven't said it since, so I don't know if that counts as your first word. Lately your favorite sound is "ba", so I've been pointing to pictures of sheep and letting you know that in theory the two of you could hold a conversation. You don't seem all that interested in sheep, which is fine. Your favorite color is still yellow--causing the excited arm-banging whenever something yellow is in your field of vision--which makes stuffed ducks your plaything of choice. This affords me plenty of opportunities to sing "put down the ducky" (a Sesame Street classic). Yes it's silly, but you'll soon come to find out that silly is encouraged in this household.

Happy six months, my squirmy baby.

Love,
Mama

*A la Beastie Boys. You, too, dig their crazy rhymin' style and funky beats. (Because you're no average rock-a-bye baby)