Miss Marlo: 6 Months!

        

Six months is a big milestone to reach.  Sweetie has started eating real food!  She started swimming lessons!  She can go in a jogging stroller (though we have yet to purchase one)!  She's sitting up more by herself lately, not for too long, but each day she gets stronger and stronger.

She still loves baby rhyme time at the public libraries and we're still making the rounds.  Her favorite is Jim at the main library.  The man is so great with the babies and deserves his own children's show!  Marlo loves the song in Spanish where we walk, hop, and run (caminando, salta, corre).  I still love watching her watch scarves blow in the wind.  Her face really does light up.

We're trying out baby led weaning with her, and so far so good!  It is so impressive--her first food has been carrots and she just eats sliced, steamed carrots, even though she doesn't have teeth yet.  We're going to try steamed broccoli next.  The book on it has these wild pictures of other babies chomping away at foods I would have never guessed babies could eat on their own, like broccoli stalks, raw apples, and bread.

On her 6 month birthday, we went to the doctor and we're always thankful when we hear that all's great and baby's healthy.  Poor sweetie got 4 shots that day--it pains me to type that, but she still seemed in good spirits so we went to her second swim lesson later that day.  She did great and is already so much more comfortable in the water!  During her bath that evening, she rested and floated on her back for the first time without trying to arch and keep her ears out of the water.  It's so cool to see her adapt so quickly!

Update: 1 week later and she's conquering so many new skills! She sits up for extended periods of time now and even kicked the soccer ball back and forth with me! And by luck, I mean tapped and pushed with her foot.  My new favorite thing is how she reaches her little arm out of the carrier to grab things now.  It surprised me so much the first time!

Baby Rhyme Time

 

Baby Rhyme Time is a free music class offered at the local libraries in SF.  Marlo loves songs so we are the Baby Rhyme Time groupies over here.  We make the rounds and check out different libraries each week, depending on our schedule.  There's an open play time after singing and now that Marlo's sitting up all on her own, we've been staying (she used to get crawled on by the other mobile babes!).  Two weeks ago, we went to the Eureka Valley branch by 16th and Market, which I'd driven by a million times and never realized was a library!  It was such a beautiful November day that they held it outside and here's Marlo chomping on some soft blocks in the sunshine during play time.  We tried to go back this week in the rain, but it was cancelled because the librarian was sick.  After Thanksgiving, you'll see us back on the circuit.  

I'm really trying to work on getting Marlo more comfortable around folks who are not her mama or papa.  I hope activities like this are helping and, of course, we just love going to the libraries.

Hott husband

My husband is hott, no joke.  He's even hotter when rocking a 3-piece suit and baby carrier! I can't get enough of these pics of him in his suit, taking care of our baby.  These are from our friends' beautiful wedding this weekend at the Palace of Fine Arts (and reception on a ship!).

Mama Do

Chopped off my hair and it feels great!  Went to my hairdresser with my usual pics of Cat Deeley (that woman rocks long layers) and then decided last minute to be brave and go for a longish bob.  I still have fantasies about going with a shorter pixie, but this is a good transition for now.  Plus, I know from experience that pixie cuts make for cold ears during winter.  Anyhow, so much time is saved with washing, combing, and styling, even though I can do most of my same long hair styles from before.  I'm really glad my hairdresser encouraged me to cut more off--it feels so much better!

Marlo's First Halloween

Yes we can, Y'all.

Marlo and me as Rosie the Riveter:  Marlo thinks strong women are no laughing matter.  

Happy Halloween!  Tonight we're going to a neighborhood block party and Marlo and I are entering the costume contest.  As always, I'm looking forward to seeing all the cute littles in their costumes!

Good morning, soccer baby

At tumetime, I learned that Marlo loves playing with shiny soccer balls.  She gets so excited at the spinning ball and reflections.  In fact, this morning she rolled from her back to her tummy two times in a row in order to get the soccer ball and she'd only ever done that one time before, probably two months ago!  I figured she needed incentive, but it's been tricky figuring out what would do the trick!  Her papa was the soccer captain in high school; he's so proud.  I can't wait for the day (if Marlo wants to play) when he gets to coach her little soccer team!

P.S.  Check out this amazing baby quilt that my foreverfriend from AmeriCorps, Emily, made us!  Marlo loves looking at and feeling the different fabrics.  The letters are hand-stamped and one of square reads, "OHM."  E-Boss knows me so well.  :D

5 Months: Miss Marlo

(I'm late posting, but these pictures are from her 5 month birthday a few weeks ago, September 29th.)

Five months, she's such a big girl now!  At five months, Marlo absolutely loves songs and dancing.    I try to take her to Baby Rhyme Time a few times a week at the local libraries because she loves it so much.  It's also nice to see the different libraries around the city.  So far, the best one has been at the main library.  The man who led it was so animated and he taught me that Marlo's fascinated by scarves blowing in the wind.

Yesterday at Duboce Park, I took out a scarf and let it blow in the wind while Marlo was lying on a blanket on the grass.  It was the greatest thing; she just started laughing and smiling so big while she watched the polka dots flap in the wind.  She laughs a lot, usually me or Eric when we're being silly and singing, trying to make her laugh.  But this was different.  It was really an amazing moment to see her experiencing such joy through simple things in the world.

On this note, other things that babe is into right now:  peek-a-boo; Whitney Houston's, "How will I know?"  That songs gets her to smile so big!; her feet!  She just discovered these a few weeks ago and when I walk into the room, I often find her studying her feet (or hands); the cats!  She's much more aware of Blue and Bell and gets so excited when she pets them.  She grabs clumps of their hair and luckily, they are patient with her.  We are trying to teach her to be gentle and have added it's sign to the ones we use daily.  It's funny that the sign for gentle is stroking the back of your hand with your other hand--just like petting a kitty; and rolling over!  She's gotten pretty good at rolling from her tummy to her back.  If one side doesn't work for whatever reason, she'll try the other until mission accomplished. As for rolling from her back to her tummy, I know she can do it, but it's been more than a month since I've seen it!  Sneaky girl.

Another thing that's new is teething.  Poor sweetie's been a little more fussy lately and needing to constantly chew on things.  She's been waking up much more frequently at night to nurse.  I'm fine with it and want to sooth her as best as I can.  However, I also worry that I'm getting her so accustomed to nursing that she won't learn how to sleep on her own.  How do I balance that with taking into account that she's teething?  She's still so young and it doesn't feel right to let her "cry it out."  Although, I don't know if it ever feels right for parents--most I've talked to about it really struggle with it, but they do it because they need to.  Her 6 month check up at the pediatrician is in a few weeks so my plan is to wait it out and ask then.

I think I saw this quote somewhere recently, but I hope there's some truth to it:  "Behind every great kid is a mom who's sure she's screwing it up."