Dear little Dahlia,

I want to take advantage of calling you that, as I don’t think it will apply for too much longer! Daddy was looking at you just the other day and thinking you are starting to look less like a baby and more like a little girl! How exciting to welcome your “new personhood”, and sad to say goodbye to our little baby. Half of a year is a long time. You are so old! This has been a long month, partly because I decided to switch over to lunar months, and so it is now Sept. 30th as opposed to Sept. 16th. So you are truly 6 months old now, and not just 24 weeks old.

You have changed so much this month. Compared to what you were like last month, your motor skills have developed so much more that you almost seem like an acrobat! You no longer do any contortions when I lay you down. You simply decide whether you want to be on you back or stomach, and make it so. Most of the time, you like to be on your stomach, because that is where the action is at! You can play on your stomach comfortably for such long periods of time now! You regularly get up on all fours and rock, or lunge toward a desired toy. It seems as if you are practically crawling. I joke that I need to get a tether for you soon if you begin to crawl. As it is, if I put you down in one place, you will be completely turned around and a couple feet away in a few minutes. I can imagine how much you will get into things when you begin to crawl!

You can sit up for a few minutes unattended before you fall into your preferred belly position. We borrowed the Excersaucer from cousin Evan and you enjoy being in there too. However, you quickly become bored with the same old safe baby toys, and constantly search for your favorite choking and laceration hazards like: boxes, pens, nail clippers, silverware, power cords, CD jewel cases, and paper. Now paper doesn’t seem that dangerous, right? Since it is really one of your favorites, sometimes I indulge you and let you nosh on a piece. However, the other day you started making gagging noises, and I was able to sweep a piece of macerated paper pulp from your mouth. I think you swallowed another piece. Yikes, I didn’t think you would try to EAT it!! Needless to say, I no longer give you paper.

At 24 weeks old, we introduced you to “solid food”. At least, thats what everyone else calls it. It really isn’t very solid, though, it is more like a liquid. Technicalities, I know. Anyway, I thought I’d be this wonderful mom and make your food for you instead of investing in the baby food making machines like Gerber or Beechnut. However, that lasted for about one meal! I did make you some organic carrots for your first food, though. You enjoying playing with them a bit, but didn’t eat much. Next, I ended up buying Gerber organic food (I wonder how long the organic thing will last. So far it has lasted longer than the “making your food” phase). You liked sweet potato better, and green peas the most. You actually open your mouth and beg for sweet peas now! Pears weren’t a huge hit. I don’t know whether it was the flavor or the temperature (I served them at room temp). They tasted too sweet to me anyway. So while it hasn’t cut into your nursing at all, or changed your sleep habits significantly, you are pretty regularly eating grown up food, as I like to call it. I haven’t completely given up on making your food, either, so we will see how that ends up.

We have been putting you in the church nursery this month, too. You are so well behaved in church, but you love to talk to the stained glass, and whine about not being able to be on the floor or eat the bulletin. Your verbal skills are getting so much better lately. You like to play at talking, and sometimes we hear mamamama or dadadada, and it inspires a thrill in our selfish parent hearts to imagine you are thinking of us. Anyway, we thought it was the right time to transition to the nursery. Well, sometimes it is OK, and sometimes you decide it is definitely NOT OK. We will keep working on it, though, because I think it is important for you to feel comfortable with other people. And since you don’t know what daycare is, church nursery is a good start.

Daddy and I are hoping to teach you a little sign language, and we signed us up for a class in November. We have started with bye-bye. You actually do this one already on your own. You are enjoying moving your wrist to bash the toys in your hand, and sometimes you do this cute wrist movement in the air when you don’t have a toy. It looks like you are waving, so every time you do it, we mimic you and say bye-bye. I really think you did it back to me one day, but I might have been imagining it. You definitely think it is funny when we do it, though. Although we can elicit smiles from you occasionally, the dog is still the best one to get you to laugh consistently. We knew she was good for something.

We went up to Ithaca last weekend to visit Uncle Russell, Aunt Sarah, and cousin Evan. We had a lot of fun walking around town at the apple festival, and doing some hiking. We always enjoy our visits with them, and wish we lived closer. We bought you your first pair of shoes at a little store there, too! They are an oh-so-stylish pair of Robeez, but you would rather suck on them than wear them. You are just too cute sometimes. You’ve also acquired two other nicknames this month: Daddy calls you Boo, and your cousin Evan calls you Yah-Yah.

Oh Little One. Thats what I call you when we have our most tender moments together. I know that things will change as you grow older, and we will have different sweet times, but this name brings to mind those snapshots we share now when my heart just overflows with love for you: your peaceful little face right after you are done nursing, you laying on your back, grabbing your feet and giggling at me, your sleepy groan that finally extinguishes as you lay your head on my chest and succumb to sleep, your radiant, squinty-eyed, McTernan smile when you see me first thing in the morning(I don’t even know how to smile with my whole face like that!), the way your tiny hands gently explore my face as you nurse contentedly. These things are so precious to me!

Well, I will wrap things up by saying that there is still nothing to report in terms of teeth, so there have been several false alarms in that area. Thats OK, although it seems that every stranger feels they have to comment about you “teething” when they see you chewing on something. Maybe it just tastes good. You are also sleeping like a champ from 7PM-7AM with one feeding around 4AM and some minor wake-ups in between occasionally. Naps are getting more consistent, but overall, I really feel like you are getting plenty of good quality sleep. I am so grateful for this. It is hard work to rearrange schedules for bed times and nap times, but I think it is worth it.

Little girl, YOU are worth it. We love you lots,
Mommy