++Six Months++

Our Little Claire...has it really been half a year since you joined our family? You sure have a big personality in that little package of yours! A 16 lb. 1oz package to be exact (more than 4 pounds less than Wyatt at this age!)

Here's a little about you at six months:
++ You are such a happy girl. You rarely cry or fuss, even when your brother pulls you across the room by your ankles or when your mom keeps you out long past your nap time.
++You are ON THE MOVE. You don't like your Exersaucer too much. It cramps your style. You prefer to be on the ground army crawling your way around foraging for small toys and crumbs. You often come to find your mom wherever she is, and flash your big smile when she talks to you. You usually wear pants. Not so sure what the story is here.
++You are extremely inquisitive and will work hard to investigate something that catches your eye. In this case...that baby you see reflected in the kick plate.++You are loving your solid foods. We haven't found one you won't gobble up yet. We introduced you to Cheerios and Puffs right around six months (in an effort to give you something more appropriate than crumbs and paper scraps to gnaw on). You respond like a dog in excitement when we shake the container (is it bad that we do this to you?) You are also getting pretty proficient at the sippy cup. You are still pretty much 100% breastfed. You'll take the bottle if that's your option, we just haven't needed it much (a sad, sad commentary on the state of MY life these days). In general you just aren't really that into milk though.

++In addition to your mobility, you learned how to sit right around six months too. It actually kept you in one place for a few days, until you figured out how to get from sitting to your tummy more gracefully. You are still working on getting back to sitting though. The result is a move that resembles the downward dog.

++Did I mention you are much more cooperative at photo shoots than your brother these days? Your mom is excited to see that your eyes are starting to resemble your brothers more and more every day. In fact, we think that in general the two of you sure do look like siblings!

It's funny. The other day I happened to look at family photo we had taken last fall. It's up on our mantle here and I look at it every day. This time when I looked at it just struck me as off. There were only three people in that photo. Our family that felt perfectly complete at the time now looks funny and unbalanced to me without our littlest member.