Six Months Old and Cute as Can Be!

Today is Willa's six month birthday!  She is getting to be such a big girl, I can't believe it.  At her doctor's appointment two months ago, he mentioned about starting her on solid foods.  She just seemed so small, I felt like she would never be ready for solids!  Now, looking at her I think it's probably time to try them.  She is just acting and looking so much older!

I'm not in any hurry to try solid foods, there are a lot of cons in my opinion: takes more time, costs more money, causes stinkier diapers.  If she was having trouble sleeping through the night or taking good naps, then I might be convinced, but for now the only big plus would be that I could leave her at a babysitter's with a jar of baby food rather than a bottle (which she may or may not take, depending on her mood).  She still only eats about five times a day, so I think the milk is filling her up just fine.

Willa finally rolled over this month.  She has done it a couple of times, but must have figured out that the end result was not fun because she has stopped doing it.  She does a halfway roll, which allows her to grab at whatever she wanted, but she rarely goes the distance anymore.  She is almost sitting up by herself, but not quite.  I'm trying to give her some practice, but am not sure how to practice this without her falling over.  I will put her in the sitting up position and lightly balance her.  She loves to be pulled by her arms from laying to standing and she stands really well with some balancing help.

This past Tuesday Willa also learned how to put her pacifier back in her mouth all by herself!  Such a big girl!  She doesn't get much time to practice this since we usually only give her the paci once she is swaddled and ready for bed, but occasionally we'll give it to her when she is up and has her hands free to play with it.  This gets me one step closer to stopping the swaddle since I don't have to worry about her tricksy hands getting the pacifier out and not being able to put it back in.  I still am leaning on the swaddle, though, because I think she does sleep more soundly with it.  I can get her to sleep without it, but never for as long.

I also forgot to mention that Willa has also started getting her hair conditioned this month!  It was getting so knotted, Ryan and I have been flummoxed in how to deal with it so we decided to start conditioner.

Her eyes are definitely going to be brown, but they still haven't settled in yet.  Some days you can catch a glimpse of them looking brown, but more often there is still a ring of the newborn blue around the edges and you can't really tell the color.

She likes scratching on different textures with her hands.  She hasn't quite figured it out in books, but she likes to put her arm on the couch, or bed, or anywhere and start scratching and listening to the noise.  She also has started to like looking at her hand while she eats.  She slowly turns it over, moves her fingers, and generally seems to be learning that that is her hand and that she has control of it.

She still sleeps 10-11 1/2 hours each night, which is great!  We take her with us on Tuesday nights when I have Young Women's and Ryan has Cub Scouts.  She is definitely getting older because she doesn't really cry anymore.  She'll just lay on the floor with her toys and play quietly while we are there.  Or, sometimes we will put her in the Baby Bjorn where she can chew on our fingers (she prefers Ryan's particularly).

She laughs and smiles more frequently now and loves to look at Ryan or whomever is talking.  As soon as she makes eye contact she gets a big smile on her face and then looks away abashedly, it's very cute.  This afternoon she fell asleep in her carseat on the way home.  I took her out of the carseat to carry her inside (she'd only been asleep about 2 minutes and I didn't want to haul the whole thing up there).  While I was carrying her she put her head down on my shoulder and went back to sleep.  It was so sweet and tender!  She seemed like a big girl sleeping on my shoulder like that as I carried her.

To celebrate today, I am going to make some brownies.  Then tonight, we are going to watch the Thursday night comedy line-up.  Back at USC we had Ryan's law school friends Peter and Scott over for dinner and the Thursday night NBC line-up.  It was always something fun to look forward to, but now that we all have moved away it's just Ryan and me and the night is always kind of anti-climactic.  Between the four of us, we would mostly get all of the wittier jokes, now at least half of them probably go over our heads.

I think that's all the Willa news I can think of.  Along with her host of nicknames previously mentioned, we also call her Raggiest T. Ragamuffin (Raggiest for short).  We probably won't get in for her six month check-up for another week or two.  She is so big, I wonder what her stats are.  There is a little baby at church who is six weeks older but Willa is bigger!

Sun Baby

My blog, my rules - therefore, several similar photos of Willa. We went to the pool again today; the water was still cool, but felt really nice to me. We didn't stay very long because I didn't put sunscreen on her and it was pretty bright outside. I don't want to damage her beautiful skin by encouraging the growth of free radicals from sun damage. We will have to wait yet a little bit longer to ascertain whether she has water feel or not.

Jumper

When my mom came to visit in February she brought this jumper for Willa. Check out the detail on the material. It's very chic; my mom admitted that she originally bought it for my little brother Cameron to use. Now, I'm not good with sibling ages, but I can safely say that Cameron is somewhere in his 20s and he's not the youngest in my family. Soooo, add together Cameron, Celeste, and probably every niece and nephew that I have and you get a well-used jumper! (I think it's fair to assume that most/all of my nieces and nephews have used this jumper since my mom took the pains to bring the jumper from my nephew Brody in Colorado all the way to Willa in Texas. Would it be cheaper to buy a 20+ year old jumper off of Craigslist rather than pay the baggage fee for Delta? I really can't say.)

Willa enjoys being in the jumper, but hasn't really figured out what it's there for. I'm starting to worry that she's somewhat addled when it comes to physical activity. I hope that she'll get the message soon. She likes to use her legs to spin around, she likes when I make the jumper bounce, and she REALLY likes to suck on the material.

Here is a photo of her sucking on the material. It's not inherently funny, since she sucks and drools on everything, but her reaction is hilarious. She leans her head down and as soon as she gets a taste, she immediately lifts her head up with a really disgusted look on her face. Maybe 20 years and 15 kids worth of drool doesn't taste very good, who am I to judge?

The photos are a little old and somewhat blurry, it's a jumper so she's moving - harder, therefore, to get a non-fuzzy photo.

Bluebells

Bluebell is the Texas state flower; it is also the name of some delicious Texas-based ice cream!

The bluebell flowers are in bloom right now so we went out yesterday to take some pictures.  Anything for a cute baby picture, right?  Also, anything to get out of the house sometimes.  Also, anything that serves as an excuse to stop by Sonic on the drive home and get a slushie.  So many reasons!!!

All packed up and ready to go!  We can fit three carseats all in a row in the Exploder.  Willa, DJ, Rene

 

Me and the Willster, tasting danger with her tongue, perhaps?

DJ and Renee - NOT posing nicely, but still looking cute

Willa was a good sport and enjoyed wiggling her little toes in the flowers.  I gave her a few flowers, thinking that I could get a cute picture of her holding them, but that only taught her that she could grab at these things and then eat them.  What fun!  This last photo of her is my favorite, I love that little smile and the look on her face.  These pigtails are what caused the crazy bedhead this morning, by the way.

Bedhead

Willa had crazy hair this morning.  I was sad when it was time to give her a bath and brush it down.

Feeding the Ducks

Carol invited us to go feed the ducks at a nearby pond. Once we were there, I remembered that feeding ducks sometimes disgusts me because of how aggressive they are.

A photo of the whole gang, except me. Carol is itty-bitty and so are her kids. Here is Renee, 15 months, still in a back-facing carseat in the snap 'n' go because she doesn't weigh enough to be turned around. Her baldy head also keeps people thinking that she is closer to 9 months and they are all surprised that she can walk when she's so little. D.J. is three and he sits on the carseat between Renee's legs. Carol really knows how to pack lightly.

These ducks below are pretty disgusting looking, they have some sort of red stuff on their beaks that makes them look like a Turkey/Duck hybrid. The original Turducken?

The kids again, Carol's husband is Filipino thus the undeniable, half-Asian cuteness. It was bright outside, poor Willa. I think the sunshade worked most of the time, but I want to find her some cute little sunglasses.

Unrelated photo of Willa in the bumbo, I love this little zoot suit hand-me-down from cousin Claire!

Thrilling news... no, not a job, wah :(

The other night I was talking to Ryan and I'm not sure how it came up, but I said, "I'm going to email a question to Joy Bauer, the nutritionist on the TODAY show!"  Then, I attempted an imitation of Joy's TODAY show segment where she answers nutrition questions and invariably tells the people to eat more chicken and fish.

I got on the computer the next day and emailed my question in.  Two days later they emailed me back asking if I'd like to do a live call or Skype of my question on the TODAY show!!  Oh yes I would!  Listen, life isn't too exciting and our particular little family has had a little bit of stress so why not spice things up by doing something silly and fun?

I opted for the call-in, no one likes when the Skype freezes and I couldn't risk not getting my question answered.  There was also the option of just having them read my email, but I found out that with that option there is no definite date, it's just kind of a filler in case they have extra time.  The very nice TODAY show assistant, Johanna, and I sent several emails back and forth (I think I got on her good side by complimenting her name, then she got on my good side by telling me that Willa was adorable).  Johanna is filing my information and will let me know as soon as the next call-in slot opens up.  I had to send a photo of myself in, so when they have me on the phone there will be a photo of me up.  So exciting :)!

What was my question?  I asked Joy why I still had a tummy pooch even though I had already lost all my pregnancy weight.  Did she have some advice for getting rid of it since spot reduction is a myth?  When I sent it in I hoped for some response because I figure that I'm the embodiment of their core demographic right now - young moms.  Do I think she's going to give me any advice besides laying off the sweets, eating protein in fish and chicken, and a lowfat diet?  Not really.  Will I follow her advice instead of eating large slices of ice cream cake throughout the day?  Probably not.  But hey, this is the stuff dreams are made of.

I will let you all know when the special segment will be, hopefully they will ask to have me back on a segment about blended Persian/American families!

Gratuitous photos of Willa watching Baby Einstein.  I don't put it on very much because I forget about it, but I think she is starting to get bored of the same old play with me and her play yard so I have been trying it more often.  She is getting into this and it cracks me up.