All the gifts that are granted

This post could more accurately be titled "Squeaker at Six Months" since that is the ground breaking topic I would like to address today but I wanted a post title to book-end the rather whiny post I wrote last time.

So Miss Baby of Many Names has lived outside the womb for 6 months tomorrow. During her short six months she has gone through many names: Squeaker - which was phased out when her vocalizations could no longer accurately be characterized as Squeaks. Question Mark - because really who is this little, toothless person who is suddenly sharing our house? Confusion - a companion name to Chaos which her older sister was branded as in, you got it, Chaos and Confusion. Thing 2 - a la Dr. Seuss, should require no explanation, and yes, her sister was branded Thing 1. Finally Loopa which is the current nom de plume she uses.

Th progress she has made is clearly illustrated in the monthly photos featuring baby and perspective-giving wine bottle:

Month 1 - slightly afraid of the wine bottle

 



 

Month 2 - fairly zen about the wine bottle

 

 

Month 3 - temporary switch to port when mom & dad had a fun evening and forgot to replenish the supply.

 

 

Month 4 - Oh, those thighs.... they're so delicious.

 

 

Month 5 - Me likey the bottle of wine.

 

 

Month 6 - no longer a fall down drunk.

 

 

 

Currently Thing 2's bag of tricks consists of sitting upright, rocking back and forth on all fours, locomoting...somehow. I am really not sure how she is doing it because she isn't crawling yet though she spends a lot of time on all fours and, strangely, in the plank position, yet I put her down in a spot and before long she is making a suicide run for the edge of the bed. She is adept at hair pulling, pinching, cooing and other vocalizations. Other vocalizations... when she is pissed she sounds remarkably like gollum only less intelligible. She growls something to the effect of: "awwwwrrrrrarrrrraawwwwawwwwaarrrr" and my sleep deprived brain imagines she is saying: "a curse be upon you! You who woke me up and is slow with the milkers... your crops will wither... the fields will lie fallow...the plagues will descend." Hmmm but maybe that's just my imagination :)

 

She is absolutely desparate to eat. I am getting to the point where I cannot eat in front of her, partially from the guilt as her eyes track my every bite from plate to mouth and partly because of the interference. When she sits in my lap at mealtime she will grab my fork on its way to my mouth and re-direct towards hers. The guilt... Ohhh the guilt. Her older sister meanwhile, not having yet developed a sense of guilt, will cheerfully make a list of all the things that Thing 2 is not allowed to eat (that would be everything not falling into the mush food group). We have started feeding her; it is a two spoon job. Much like a dog who will not relinquish his ball until it is replaced with another, she grasps her spoon in a death grip long after it is empty until another spoon is offered. At this point I would say the absorption rate when feeding is about 15%.

 

Thing 2 is not interested in a pacifier for which we are extremely grateful still being in the position of trying to wean Thing 1 from hers... at age 3! On the other hand, in the great tradition of the Toothless People, she is not adverse to having all manner of Dangerous Object in her mouth. Despite the $30 Sofia the Giraffe I recently purchased specifically for teething (yup, that would be thirty dollars for a plastic giraffe and despite the sales clerk's earnest assurance that the rubber was "all natural" - (what rubber ISN'T all natural anyway??) I am starting to question the sanity of spending $30 on a lump of rubber. Chalk it up to another moronic purchase made while sleep deprived), her taste runs to remote controls, telephones and dirty socks.

 

Yeah, Sofia is okay. But not as good to chew on as a mom's finger or a battery.

 

 

 

 

Luckily for us she is still lacking object permanence so when she does Houdini her way past all the obstacles and reach the dangerous Object of Desire we can whisk it out of her hand and she simply assumes it doesn't exist anymore so... no complaints. Similarly there have been no complaints the few times I have left her with other people. At this stage it seems that any warm, friendly set of arms will do and if the milkers aren't available than a bottle is just fine. Then again perhaps any warm set of arms is a welcome change from Cranky Mom.

 

So as was the case with Thing 1, Thing 2 must sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and read our well worn copy of "What to Expect in the First Year" because she is nailing all her milestones with military precision. Rolling, cooing, crawling, teething and yes, learning to drive:

 

 

 

And, of course to ride a giant blue dog: