Madison Monthly: 6

The Basics
I can not believe my little baby turns 6 months today. She is getting so big - like seriously folks, she's tall and chunky - and her personality is starting to shine through - active, ADD, and stubborn.

Eating and Sleeping

I started her on rice cereal once a day when she turned five months, and she had no problems whatsoever; my little chunkbutt likes to eat. She seems to prefer her cereal with a bit more consistency - which is awesome as she manages to barely make a mess that way. Today I plan on feeding her sweet potatoes for her first baby meal, and I have no doubt she will be a-okay with that as well. My crazy baby can even drink out of a glass. I was having a bit of water while holding her and her little eyes were all beggy, so I thought why not...And she drank out of that glass like she'd been doing it for years. Perhaps a sippy cup is in my baby's near future.

Slowly but surely, M is learning how to feed herself her bottle. Right now, she can hold it in her mouth, but she can't quite grasp the concept of tipping the bottle to keep that delicious formula flowing:

M does not like sleeping. She thinks it's for wussies. I even came up with a song (sung to the Toys R Us Kid tune):

I don't want to go to sleep
I want to see everything
There's a million things that I can see if I'm not sleepin'
I don't want to go to sleep
Cuz if I did
I couldn't be a nosy little kid

And yes I do sing it to her - and not always in a seriously annoyed tone of voice.

Her napping is completely erratic, twenty minutes here and there one day, two hours the next day. Sometimes I have to fight for an hour to get her to sleep; other times she falls out in less than a minute. It's, uh, frustrating (as in I want to lock myself in a dark room and bang my head against the wall).

Night sleeping isn't much better. Just like with naps, it's a crapshoot as to how easily she'll go to sleep. And then whether or not she stays asleep is iffy too. Some nights, she wakes up a half hour after going to bed and needs to be put back to sleep all over again. Other nights, she half-wakes up every two hours, not enough to actually get me out of bed, but enough to wake me up through the monitor.

Her big issue with sleeping seems to be her inability to get comfortable. That girl flops around like a fish out of water: side to side, front to back, rolling this way and that, half the time completely cockamamied in the crib. Her legs go through the crib slats, her head can be all pressed up against the side of the crib, quite often she gets up in the morning with her head at the foot of the bed. It's insane. And if it doesn't stop soon, Mommy is going to die from exhaustion.

Behavior and Development
M loves her daddy. She gets all excited when she sees him and starts whining if he doesn't pick her up, her little arms all reaching for him (which she rarely does for the poor unloved mommy).

Rolling has come a long way this month. She can now roll all over the place, getting from point A to point B quite easily. The only thing she hasn't quite figured out is that things will not magically get out of her way. For example, if she rolls into the couch, she keeps trying to roll in that direction, and she'll even give you a look like "okay mom, get this thing out of my way".  And she likes to grab things while she rolls - like blankets or the developmental gym - and then those things sort of go with her....(see pics)

She still likes tv and unbelievably to me seems to prefer cartoons, so I am becoming quite the expert in Spongebob, Dora, something called a Bubble Guppy, and Team Umizoomi. Speaking of Bubble Guppies, that cinnamon roll hair whatsherface has really annoys me. As for using the tv as a babysitter, yeah right? Her attention span is like five seconds, and I don't think five seconds of tv will rot her brain. But if the tv can be added in to the neverending loop of exersaucer, developmental gym, walking around the house, swinging outside, and playing the monkeys, then I am thrilled.

Okay, you may be wondering what playing with the monkeys is...I used to enjoy playing Bubble Safari on facebook (a game which features monkeys and bubbles). In an effort to stop M from making that horrible whiny noise she so clearly loves, I tried distracting her with it, and she loved it. She can sit on my lap and watch me play like three games of it (approximately 10 minutes?). 10 minutes of not having to move her from here to there to everywhere is like heaven. I am now an expert at Bubble Safari and I no longer enjoy the game. I call it playing with the monkeys.

She sat up by herself for 20 seconds July 8 and since that time she has gotten much better. I still have to sit by her and catch her from time to time, but she can make it on her own for quite some time now (especially in boxes). It's like she gets bored and decides falling over would break the monotony of sitting up.

Social Stuff
For the most part, M has no problem meeting new people and being in crowds. She talks to our neighbors and even allows them the pleasure of holding her. She played with (translation: watched) her four cousins, and again, deigned to offer her squishy self to their waiting arms.We'll see how she does with five new people living in her house as I have family coming in today to stay for a week!

She is a nosy nutter and her preferred mode of transportation to see things is someone's arms. Her favorite activity is being walked around by someone, face out, legs kicking away, so she can see and touch everything in existence.

Mommy Notes
I'm tired. Blah Blah tired. I hope she gets sleeping under control sometime soon. If she would stop flopping around and letting out her little cries all freaking night, things would be better. I miss sleep. :)

The Pictures