It’s only a months difference but 6 months sure seems ridiculously  older than 5 months. Charlotte was a trooper at her 6 month well-check.

She is now 26 inches tall and weighs 14 lbs 9 oz.

At 6 months, Charlotte:

• Still loves reading with her daddy, and the ratio of ‘looking’ at the book compared to ‘eating’ the book is improving and these books may just survive long enough to see our next child.

• Has begun her first parent-child class at The Little Gym of Chesapeake. She’s in the ‘Bugs’ class every Saturday.

I may be a little biased, but I think I love the Gym so much because I have seen firsthand from working there how many wonderful things kiddos can gain from these classes: physical, social, emotional development. 

• Is rocking her cloth diapers. We are almost 100% cloth now; she is only in sposies 2 days a week when she is with my sister and I am at work. My sister has said she doesn’t mind venturing into the cloth world on T/Th with Charlotte but we have quite a few size 2 sposies {which she is finally fitting in to} that were gifted to us in an awesome diaper cake – that’s just one less thing to get together on work mornings. And, since we are confessing all sins, I have to admit I will sometimes put Charlotte in a disposable just because I want her to wear a certain pair of pants that don’t normally fit her if she’s in a cloth, ha! 

• Is sitting up like a CHAMP! It happened so quickly. One minute she had absolutely no interest in sitting up and would fold over like a taco and gnaw on her feet any time I would prop her up; the next minute she was sitting unassisted and was rarely falling over, able to grab toys and play with them. 
• Loves music and is very content when we sing to her; she is very attentive to books, singing, and baby signs right now. I can tell she is understanding the meaning of quite a few words; it is so much fun to see her language developing and her personality is really reflected in her babbling and ‘talking’. I think we have a strong willed, very opinionated child on our hands!
• Is itching to crawl but isn’t able to get her knees up under herself yet, which is a relief for me… and very frustrating for her. She isn’t stationary though, she will roll and shimmy her way around on the floor to get to toys, shoes, anything her little heart desires.
• Is still only trying foods for taste and texture experience. So far on the yummy list: carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, prunes, avocado and apple sauce {all made by me and frozen for convenience. so easy to do… really}. On the naughty list: bananas. I thought for SURE she would like bananas but the past 3 times they have been rejected and we are presented with a tightly closed mouth after the second bite. I am going to try at least 7 more times because research shows that it may take as many as 10 tries with a new food before a kiddo decides whether or not they truly like it or not. If you think about it, they are just learning to process the taste, temperature, texture, and smell of all kinds of new things all while refining their open-mouth-then-swallow skills. A baby may reject a food based solely on one factor of that bite {smell, temperature, etc}. I won’t give up on you bananas!
• Is teething like crazy, but still only those 2 teeth on the bottom have come through. She will gnaw pretty much anything she can get her hands on; I don’t normally let her chew on her binky like she is in the video, but it was just so funny I didn’t want to pull it away from her.

• Is still sporting the cockatoo hair plume in the back and the long bangs comb-over in the front. Very trendy. It seems to be getting a little better now that she is spending most of her awake time on her tummy or sitting up
• Is waking up for at least one feeding throughout the night {remember a bit ago I told you she had stopped that and was sleeping 8+ hours and how I sort of missed our night-time snuggles? Well next time, tell me to can it! She must have heard me say I missed snuggling her in the middle of the night because she has been sacrificing and waking up at least once, sometimes 2 or 3 times, just to spend time with me. What a peach}.
• We are still battling some sleep issues, but it is definitely improving. Around 5 months Charlotte really started struggling with going down to sleep. Starting at about 2 months old I made sure I never rocked her completely to sleep and that she was still pseudo-awake when she went down, we’ve kept the routine the same, etc. I really think she is entering the phase of development that includes comprehension of object permanence {i.e.: mommy still exists even when I can’t see her}. After a few ‘wake up, cry, mommy comes in to snuggle’ scenarios…. we’d reinforced a bad bedtime routine. I’ll go into more detail in another post but she is definitely getting better with both daytime napping and bedtime.

Here are some sneak peeks at her 6 month photos, taken by a friend and owner of Kreative Snaps Photography. We had a blast taking these photos. I can’t wait to see more!

I’ve really wanted to cry each time I typed ‘6 month old’ today. I LOVE this age. She’s the perfect amount of baby-baby and toddler- baby right now. Still loves to {and needs to} snuggle and be held but is also able to play with us, give us a laugh of anticipation and recognition, and express her feelings.

You’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming to 7 months.