Staceytown: 26 Weeks

Josie is now 6 months old :) We celebrated her half-birthday by going for a walk (to drop off a contract that has now been ratified for the rental house!), going out to Sweetwater Tavern (where we also went for my birthday when she was three weeks old, back when I thought that would be the last time we'd be going out to eat until she was six years old - funny how much that changed), and having lots of naptime on us.

[Ready for her walk!]

This week was a bit of an adjustment again - after all of us being home together the week before, I was surprised at just how hard it was to go back to work this week. I was happy to get some work done that had been building up, but it was hard to be apart from Josie (and Ryan, for that matter) after getting to spend so much time together again. The need to be near her was a bit over the top this week and maybe not even in my best interest - if she had had a good night and didn't wake me up before 2:30am, then I started getting twitchy and watching for her to open her eyes so I could snatch her and "comfort" her - when really, the two feet separating our bed from her crib was just too far for me to deal with, and I just wanted an excuse to cuddle with her :)

As far as Josie's development, she's gotten much better about putting weight on her legs, and was standing for a while today with Ryan just supporting her belly so she didn't topple over, but he wasn't actually holding her up. She also rolled tummy to back going the other way now, but she still isn't too interested in rolling back to tummy all the way over by herself. Josie has been working on her grip, and has been grabbing onto any loose skin she can get a hold of on Ryan and me (his throat, my arms, etc.), and doing other rather unpleasant things like digging her little dagger fingers between the bones in my elbow (which feels even worse than it sounds).

Josie's feet continue to be a point of fascination for her, and she can now grab onto and pull her feet towards her to gnaw on:

[Note the hiccups - she doesn't get them as much as she used to, but still will if she gets laughing hard enough, as was the case here; apparently, yelling "naked baby!" at her a bunch of times was enough to set her off ;)]

Jose also started working on some other new consonant sounds, with our favorite being "t":

[A very soft "t" makes its appearance at around 16 seconds - note also her abuse of poor Mr. Hand Sanitizer]

So 6 months marks not only the halfway point to Josie's first birthday, but also marks the halfway point for two more things: my goal to keep doing weekly updates for her entire first year, and my hope to also keep nursing for a year. I've heard there are companies out there that will print and bind blogs, so I was thinking a weekly narrative of Josie's first year would be a really nice thing to have and to be able to give to her at one point. And while I know I had previously said that the plan was to nurse for 6 months, that was more the "attainable" goal, while the real, "stretch" goal was always to nurse for a year. So since I'm halfway there and know what to expect a bit more, we're going to just keep going and see how far we get :)

Something else I was looking forward to when Josie hit 6 months was that this was supposedly the magical age when her digestive tract would be mature enough that the food sensitivities should begin to subside and her spitting up should start getting better. She did spit up much less than she had been for a few weeks, but - perhaps not coincidentally - she just started spitting up pretty badly again. "Not coincidentally" because I also started to slowly reintroduce some of the foods that I'd been trying to avoid for the last 3 months. I've had some cheese and other dairy in small amounts, and I suspect that's probably what she's reacting to. I've also had some corn several times now, which she seemed fine with, as well as some bread and pasta (which was a twofer, with wheat and tomatoes!), which she may have been ok with. I'm fine with continuing to avoid these foods for as long as I need to, though, although it does make it a little easier if I don't need to, since I do still forget to pay attention to what I'm eating until I'm halfway through it sometimes.

Last week I also had a beer for the first time since I got pregnant (the near beer last Thanksgiving notwithstanding). I've read that I could have a beer, and, if timed correctly, it wouldn't have any negative effects on breastfeeding, but I didn't feel like worrying about the timing, so instead I had maybe a quarter of the beer New Year's Day and then had a few sips each night throughout the week. Surprisingly, the beer actually kept its flavor and didn't get too flat over the course of the week :) So I made it all the way through 2011 without any alcohol, but I'm still going to wait until after Josie is weaned before I properly enjoy a beer again - maybe even all in one sitting ;)

Miscellaneous cuteness:

[Blowing raspberries and getting distracted by her feet]