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Anna has entered a very vocal stage. Since she has been such a quiet baby I wasn’t sure what to expect from her as she entered the more vocal babbling stage of babyhood. Though she is still a pretty quiet baby things have certainly gotten a lot louder around this house lately.
She has discovered a lot of new sounds and plays with a lot of different sounds. Her preferred form of vocalization is still squealing, however, she has discovered that she can make her voice very, VERY loud so the squealing around these parts has reached new ear-piercing levels. My favorite is when she decides to wake in the middle of the night and squeal to herself for close to an hour (can you sense the sarcasm).
Over the last couple of weeks she has really started to discovered a lot of new noises and sounds she can make and spends much of her day practicing one form of verbalization or another. Today it has been all about “mmmmmmma mum”. Yesterday it was little fake coughs over and over and over again. A few days ago she was all about blowing raspberries.
You should see the delight on her face when you copy a sound back to her. You can just see her thinking “Hey, that is the sound I just made!!”
Maya was a very vocal baby. She switched from cooing to babbling very early. By 4 months she was babbling with ma, ba, da, and ga. Anna has been a much quieter baby. She spends a lot of time observing and absorbing what is going on around her in her quiet little way. I love all the new little sounds she has developed. I love how she creates this perfectly adorable mix of peacefulness and sweet little babbling and crazy loud squealing as a soundtrack to her day.
I leave you with a small taste of Miss Anna’s crazy loud squealing. Happy Weekend 
Look who is looking at the world from a different perspective these days.
She still isn’t super stable sitting up on her own, and in the blink of an eye she will topple over. But, each day she seems to be sitting up better and for longer before she face plants.
The girl likes to keep us on our toes with a little game she has developed to make sitting practice more fun. She loves to throw herself back as fast as she can. If we don’t have a pillow, or ourselves, behind her she would smack her poor little head super hard. You can’t see it coming either. She’ll be sitting smiling, reaching for things, having fun and then in the blink of an eye she has flung herself back and is giggling at herself. Luckily, we’ve avoided injury by always making sure that there is something, or someone, behind her.
I can’t believe she is already old enough to be sitting up by herself. She is my little big girl.
Rhythm pulses through her veins. Melodies fill her brain. Her days are filled with music and dancing. A day without dancing isn’t a day worth living as far as she is concerned. She is a musical soul.
Dancing to her favorite Dragon song
There isn’t any one type of music that she gravitates towards, although a good beat does seems to help. The only requirement for making the list is that the song speaks to her and makes her want to dance. If she can’t not dance to a song it will become an instant favorite and very quickly makes its way onto her iPod. Her favorites range from Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape, to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, to Forbidden Friendship from the How to Train Your Dragon Soundtrack, to OneRepublic’s All the Right Moves, to Led Zeppelin’s Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, to Eminem’s Like Toy Soldiers.
Her musical tastes are beautifully eclectic. And, there is just no swaying her opinion, no matter how hard her daddy tries You can’t convince her she doesn’t like a song once she has developed a taste for it and you can’t convince her that she likes a song that hasn’t spoken to her. She usually knows the very first time she hears a song whether it is a keeper or not. There is no telling what her next favorite is going to be either, she will hear a song on the radio or in a movie or something, it makes her want to dance and is an instant new favorite.
I love her love for music. I love how she sings to her self a random times throughout the day and will just start dancing to some tune playing in her head. I’m pretty sure there is always a song playing in her head.
Anna celebrated her half birthday over the weekend. That’s right, my baby girl is already 6 months old. It feels like she just joined our family but at the same time I can’t remember life without her.
6 Month Stats:
Weight: 14lbs 15oz (28th percentile)
Height: 25 3/4 inches (50th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 1/2 inches ( 34th percentile)
I cannot even begin to find the words to tell you how absolutely incredible Anna is. If you were to send up an order for the perfect baby it is quite possible you would end up with Anna. She is just so good and so happy all the time. The girl loves her sleep and takes at least 2 really good naps every day and sleeps 11-12 hours straight at night. She radiates peace and joy. It doesn’t really matter what she is doing she is pretty much always content and happy (unless you keep her up past her bedtime, of course!). She brings out the best in people. You can’t help but smile in her presence, as a smile lights up her whole face and she babbles or squeals or giggles away. Her sister is completely enamored with her and she with her sister. Watching the two of them interact is often the highlight of my day, they are so cute together.
Anna has “grown up” a lot this past month. She has become quite the skilled little baby. She is sitting for short periods on her own and every time she practices sitting she seems to get better and better at it. Toys are her new best friends, she definitely has her favorites, but she hasn’t met a toy she doesn’t like yet She can reach for things so well now and pass toys back and forth between her hands. It is so cute to watch her hand movements becoming so much more deliberate and controlled. Gone are the days of just swiping at things, now if she see something she wants she doesn’t whatever she can to get it. Her tummy time is becoming more fun since she can pull things towards herself to play with now and has so much more head control. Her “talking” abilities have really grown this month too. We are hearing more consonant sounds like ba, ma, etc. and she is learning to blow raspberries and make funny sounds with her mouth.
Breastfeeding is still going really well. She eats on demand, usually every 2-3 hours, during the day and, as I mentioned early, is going about 12ish hours at night. We just started solids and though she isn’t a big fan we’ll keep trying. She did enjoy the bananas she had last week but wasn’t too fussy on the squash or peas. I’m guessing she is going to more a fruit girl like her big sister.
I love this age. It is so fun to watch them grow and change as they begin to more aware of the world around them and develop a desire to explore their little world. I know this next month is going to see a lot of changes again. It will be interesting to see what she is like as she turns 7 months old.
Love you bunches my beautiful baby girl
Anna had her first taste of “real” food this week, and by “real” I mean food other than the boobie milk she has been consuming for the last 6 months. And, just like her sister before her, she doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of the non-boobie milk food so far. Although, each time she has tolerated it a little better than the previous day, so there is hope yet
Her first bite of food was a little piece of a very mushy carrot that she had the other evening while we were eating dinner. I just gave her a steamed carrot to see what she would do with it. She played with it for a bit and then I put a little mushed up piece in her mouth. She let it sit on her tongue for a minute looking at me like I had three heads and was trying to poison her before spitting it out. We all got a few giggles out of the ordeal.
A couple of days later I gave her some oatmeal. She was not a fan, not in the least! I had originally planned on foregoing the mushy baby cereal all together and just going straight to veggies and fruit, but decided at the last minute to give her a little bit of oatmeal as a way to test if she was even ready for solids yet and to see if, maybe, she would like it. Turns out, nope, she’s a fan.
So, since cereal wasn’t a hit I went back to my original plan and started with a veggie. I’ll wait and give her oatmeal again later on when she is ready for regular consistency oatmeal and when I can mix it with something yummy like peaches or applesauce. Yesterday was her first shot with the veggies. I gave her some roasted butternut squash and though she wasn’t a huge fan, she certainly didn’t seem to hate it, so I’m counting it as a success. She had some again today and did even better than yesterday. I think we can safely add squash to the list of foods that she considers somewhat tolerable at this point
I have to say I love her “Mommy, what the hell did you just put in my mouth!” facial expressions. They make me giggle EVERY time. Between the silly, yet adorable, faces she makes and how darn cute she looks sitting in her highchair, I’m really enjoying this whole introducing food business even if she isn’t completely on board with the whole idea yet
