6 months

Posted by E-George on March 21, 2009

Tomorrow is Evelyn’s 6 month birthday. Since she didn’t have a proper 5-month update, this post will feature pictures and video from the past two months.

These last two months, I’ve gotten more consistent about providing dedicated tummy time.

She wants to crawl really badly, but right now all she can do is carpet surf on her belly. That’s where the baby’s arms and legs suddenly shoot out in all directions and she pivots on her navel while her arms and legs flap about in a general swimming motion. Observe:

In the past two months, she has discovered her toes, and further discovered that they can go in her mouth. It’s clear from her expressions that sometimes they don’t taste quite so good, but she powers past the slightly odd flavor for the sheer joy of having a new set of phalanges to masticate.

At her 6-month appointment last week, her stats continued to improve: 25 inches long, 14.2 lbs, and a 17-cm head circumference. The doctor pointed out her head was a little large. So, I pointed out that he smelled like disinfectant. There. We’re even.

We had our second round of vaccinations, which were far more traumatic for her than the first time. The first time she just cried a little bit after the second shot. This time she cried so hard that once it was over and I picked her up she threw her arms around my neck and truly clung to me first the first time ever. I comforted her by saying that if the nurse came back into the room I’d beat her up. That seemed to help. Also, for the first time ever, she rolled over from back to front on the doctor’s examination table, and then repeated the feat later that evening during nudie time.

We bought her a jump station. We couldn’t use one of those jumpy-seat things that hangs in doorways because (a) we didn’t have a door frame space suitable to hang one, and (b) the door frame space that was available was between the kitchen and the pantry. This would work, except there is a door that backs up to the pantry door that is the garage entry point. The result is that if the pantry door is open when the garage door gets open, the pantry door gets rather forcefully slammed shut. I didn’t think it was prudent to hang Evelyn in a jumpy seat in a door that had the potentially of being slammed shut whilst and at the same time she was in it.

At first, she hated it. She cried and cried, so I just kept her out of it. For the next couple of days we’d stop by and look at it, but never actually sit in it. Finally, one day I plopped her butt into the seat and she’s been enjoying it ever since.

Spenser and Amy came for a visit last weekend and got to meet Evelyn. I realize that’s not the entire impetus of their visit. Matthew and Spenser enjoyed endless “bitchass”-laced antagonistic rants over a rainbow of topics.

In honor of the occasion, Spenser and Amy had previously supplied Evelyn with a howling-wolf onesie (along with a greeting that stated, “Your father is a wolfass!”), which she graciously modeled during their visit. Anyone who knows about Matthew’s long-standing hatred of the wolf can appreciate this better than anyone who looks at this onesie and thinks to themselves, Ooooohhhhh…the majestic wolf!

Nudie time has gotten to be a very special and fun time of the day. She’s now able to recognize the time of day enough to get a little extra cheery at the prospect of ditching all her clothes for an uninhibited 30 minutes (or more) of naked wriggling.

We’ve gotten into some tripod action, but there are not pictures of it yet. She can sit up almost by herself, which is exciting. She uses her legs a lot in the play gym to kick the toys around and make the fabric arches move.

All of a sudden about two weeks ago, Evelyn sprouted hair. It’s starting to look like she’ll have a healthy thicket of blondish hair, but, while it is coming in, some of her baby hairs are holding on for dear life.

We made a trip to Minnesota in February, which went really well. While there, we spent much of our time with Matthew’s brother and family. At some point, they located a toy truck that Matthew used to play on as a tyke. This will serve as proof to Evelyn that her daddy isn’t always so serious all the time.

Spring is in full swing here, and one day we took the jump station outside into the grass to spend some time outside. Evelyn played hard and laughed and chatted while I held an umbrella to keep the sun off her beautiful skin

It’s her smile that is so amazing. It’s pure sunshine. Honest-to-goodness unadulterated UV light sent straight from God. There is nothing more validating that to have her turn her head, catch my eye, and grin that one-and-only smile.

It’s also worth noting that this birthday is punctuated by sadness as Evelyn lost her first relative today. Her Great Aunt Eva died very suddenly, and I find that I’m mixed up with huge waves of disappointment over this significant loss that are battling with equally huge waves of contentment that Aunt Eva got to meet Evelyn when we were in Minnesota. Evelyn (and I) wants to take care of her Babka.

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