Dear Julia, You're 6 months old!

Dear Julia,

You're 6 months old! Happy half birthday my baby girl. You went from being a content infant to being a curious wiggly baby. You took your first crawling step with your hand on October 24th. You surprised us right after turning 5 months old by basically crawling. Your tummy came up off of the ground! Your knees started crawling but you would splat down to reach out. On the 29th, you took a bunch of hand crawling "steps." How cool! You started sitting too!

You have been holding on when you are carried. 

You started to reach for food. I let you taste Clara's mango sweet potato amd millet pouch. Then I made you cereal with formula but you thought it was gross. I tasted it and agreed. I will stick to breast milk for your oatmeal. That formula from pouches might be bad. Sorry! Pumping is impossible to do with babies awake and I do not have much frozen milk saved up. So you have had yummy cereal only two or three times. I will start giving you more now because you are fussy more and wake up lots at night now. 

You take a pacifier and expect it in your carseat but do not need it all the time. Recently, it does not pacify you all the time. 

When you cry, you are tired. 

Here you are at your cousin(-ish) Trace's 5th birthday Ninja Turtle party. 

You started needing to be next to me to go to sleep and stay asleep. So I've gotten nothing done in the evenings. I do love sleeping next to you, we both get good sleep that way, but lately you have woken up multiple times at night, and some to cry. It was like you were hurting two nights in a row. Then you cut your first tooth. I didn't even have your amber necklace b/c it was beside our bed and I couldn't find it. You were also stuffy so had a hard time nursing or using a pacifier. The last couple of nights have been better although you still have a bit of a runny nose.
You are crawling officially now. (2 days after your 6 month birthday.) You crawled before, but now you're not intimidated by something being on the other side of the room. You go for it. You are making me nervous because we have to vacuum twice/day now but this also means that you're smart and will be getting into things. You reached the plugs today. At least we already have plug covers in the holes. You are going to be a leader. I can already tell. At least you will not get bored in one place and beg to be moved to another location. That's the good news.
I love you. I love that you grab onto my garments. I love that you have soft hair. I love that you are already a self starter. You're going places in life!
I love you,
love, Mom