Half-Way There!

It's been six months since Aiyana entered the world. I love saying that! Six more to go until her first birthday. Dan and I are so excited to watch her grow into a toddler and experience all these new stages.

At 5-1/2-months old, in attempt to regain control of Aiyana's frequent night wakings, we thought we'd try filling her tummy with solids -- even though I've read that solids doesn't solve the problem. Still, we thought we'd give it a shot anyway.

Mm-mmm... RICE CEREAL!



She was pretty excited about this new texture in her mouth and seemed to want more. So down the trough it continued! I made it a little too thin at first and it just dribbled down her face. It's hard getting that consistency just right for the first feeding.

After five days, Aiyana seemed to become disinterested following a few bites of each meal. She'd stick out her whole tongue like a lizard and push the mush off the spoon. While funny, we made very little progess in the digesting department. So, not blaming her for becoming bored with the bland taste, we introduced a variety of baby foods every couple days. It was a hit! So far, she has tried sweet potatoes, pears, green beans, apple sauce, carrots, and somewhere in the middle of that list, had to ingest prunes before constipation became an issue. Now she is an amazing eater and loves everything we give her. She sure isn't picky!

 Just call her little Cindy Crawford. This happened by accident.

"Moley, moley moley!"

We've been playing around with nick-naming her "Aiya" because it might be easier for people to remember her name and pronounce it correctly. ("I-yuh") I've tested it out a few times. It seems to help people add that third syallable without saying the emphasis in the wrong place:
 "Aiya" + "na". Now say it fast just like that. Good job, peeps.

Aiyana is generally in a good mood throughout the day. Since moving, we've continued her routine of a short morning nap, napping 1-3pm, and maybe another short nap before bedtime at 7:30pm. She's been great! Sadly, I'm at a loss at what to do with night times. She's acting like a newborn almost with how many times she wakes and expects to be nursed or rocked to sleep. At bedtime, she has no problem falling asleep on her own like she's always done. But now instead of a nice long stretch of 6-7 hours, she's waking every 3-4 hours throughout the night, sometimes every two!

Exhaustion has made me lazy and she ends up sleeping in bed with us. To be honest, I love snuggling with her in our bed. But for habit-sake, I don't want to keep doing it. Her crib is set up now so once we get back from Thanksgiving break, we'll add the last curtain and hopefully she'll make the transition into her own room so I can ignore her fussing without worrying about waking Dan up. I'm not sure how I feel about the crying-it-out method just yet, so we'll see how it goes. We did buy a video monitor this week and I already love it. Why didn't I buy it when she was first born?? It takes so much worry off my mind just to be able to see her (although it's been great exercise running back and forth to peek at her so frequently!).

Here's a typical morning for us, with Aiyana waking up at 5:30 or 6am now (she's never recovered from daylight savings coming to an end). I'm still hoping she'll go back to 7-7:30am.

 Love that belly!

 Dan trying his best to ignore her for another hour. . .

She sure wakes up happy though! She's such a babbler, sometimes in the middle of the night, and always first thing in the morning. She loves to squeal and laugh, but now she can say:

"Ba-Ba-Ba . . . Baa-ba"

"Beh! Beh!"

"Da-da-da . . . daahhh-da"

Her sounds are adorable! I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what any of this means, even though we'd love to think she's saying, "Dada" for Daddy. At her doctor's appointment yesterday, I asked what sounds she should be making and Dr. Duddy explained that she should be making squeals but no consonants yet. He was impressed when I presented her list of sounds. He said that doesn't usually happen until 9 months or so. We've got a talker on our hands!

Speaking of, here are Aiyana's 6 month stats:

Weight: 17.6 lbs (75%. So proud of our porky)

Height: 25.75 in. (55% and right on track to reaching her mama's height of 5'5")

Occasionally, she watches shows on the laptop:

 As you can see, it's super exciting! She's babbling back at the show here.

Last fun note: She likes to head-bonk. If we're holding her in our lap, we lean forward and say, "booonk" while gently tapping heads together. She's learned to lean forward at the same time so we can bonk heads. It's great fun. She even initiated this action while the four-year-old that Sandra babysits was playing with her! So funny.

P.S. She still has not outgrown her sweaty hands and feet. At Calvin's baby-blessing, Lila came over to say hi to Aiyana. She held her hand and then quickly let go, mumbling as she walked away towards Grandma Kiefer, "She's dirty . . . " Ha ha! When a four-year-old is talking about your baby being dirty, you know you've got problems!