Last week, Lucia
turned six months old. I almost
can’t believe it, although when I think back, it truly seems like ages since
she was born. We no longer feel like
we’re in the “new parent” stage. We’ve
adjusted to life as a family of three and can’t remember what life was like
before our sweet Lulu.
Since she was born,
I’ve constantly heard comments about how happy Lucia is. Even though her first teeth started to appear
a few days before her six month “birthday”, she remains a very content
baby. She almost always has a smile on
her face and despite their frequency, they never fail to make me smile
back. There have been so many changes
the past month, but perhaps the most notable is the emergence of her little
personality. Before becoming a mother, I
didn’t understand how parents could tell what each cry or sound their child
meant; to me every cry sounded the same.
But somehow, it all is so obvious to me and despite her lack of words,
Lucia can clearly communicate to me not only her needs but also her likes and
dislikes.
Another comment I’ve
often received is that Lucia is extremely vocal. Is she ever!
She is constantly “talking”, so much so that if there is even a few
moments of silence that can only mean that Lulu is either asleep or found
something she just can’t stop sucking on (like her
Sophie The Giraffe
teether!). I didn’t realize just how
vocal she was until we had the opportunity to spend time with various other
babies around her age this month. None
of them chatted as much as she did (in fact, many of them started crying due to
her loud happy shrieks and babble).
Not only is she
vocal, Lucia is also able to communicate through baby sign language now! Just Monday she made her first sign, the sign
for milk! David and I had only
introduced two signs to her, “milk” and “change”, and I’ve known for a while
that she understands what they mean because she gets very excited, smiley, and
waves her hands when I sign “milk”. She
started moving her hand in a very purposeful nature and while it didn’t look
quite like milk, it soon became obvious that was what she was trying to
communicate. She did it again around the
next feeding time, so I think we can be pretty confident that we weren’t
imagining it. I’m quite proud, and in
fact a little surprised, that baby sign language actually worked for us. We decided to start employing a few more
signs, including water (that girl loves drinking water from a mommy’s cup!).
Lucia is entering an
exploratory phase. Everything is new
and exciting, which means that she also gets distracted easily. Breastfeeding has become difficult because
sights and sounds are so much more interesting than quietly eating in mama’s
arms. Lulu loves watching others clap,
so much so that this is the surefire way to get her attention or stop her from
crying. She loves playing with new
things and clearly recognizes what is new and what is not, if it’s an old toy,
she’s just not interested. If David and
I are holding something, you better believe that Lulu wants it. That’s not to
say that she is selfish and just wants to take things away from others, because
she likes to “share” her toys by first sticking them in her mouth and then
sticking them into mama’s or daddy’s mouth.
There are a few toys that she absolutely loves and doesn’t tire of - her
Laugh And Learn Puppy, her Sophie the Giraffe,
wooden blocks, and her
books. Oh books, my baby girl takes
after me! She’s going to be a voracious
reader because at six months she can’t part with her books. She likes to turn the pages and, of course,
loves to suck on them. Sometimes I
wonder why we even have toys for her because household objects are just as fun
- measuring cups, spoons, scarves.
As for motor skills,
I can’t believe all Lulu’s learned in the past month. She’s rolling over from back to tummy now and
has been rolling over from tummy to back for a while, which means that she can
now roll herself across the room. I
don’t think she’s quite learned the concept of rolling to where she wants to
go, so she rolls herself six feet away from her toys and then becomes quite
grumpy that she is so far away. She is
also sitting up solidly and only falls over when she gets too excited, starts
moving her arms and legs quickly, and falls over. She recently learned about slapping items and
thinks it is quite fun to hit her toys or her parents on the face. Hitting the table produces peals of
laughter.
Lu’s really teething
now and her first two bottom teeth are visible above the gum line. Although I have noticed a few times when
it seems her gums have been in quite a bit of pain, it hasn’t been unbearable
as she has generally felt much better gnawing on a teether. Teething has affected her sleep though, as we
have had to stop swaddling her recently.
Instead of falling right back asleep while shifting around during the
night, Lucia started waking up crying because of the pain from teething and her
inability to do anything about it with her arms in the swaddler. Once we started putting her to sleep without
the swaddler, her sleeping improved as she could stuff her fingers in her mouth
during the night to sooth her gums.
David and I have
finally learned what it’s like to have a baby up several times at night. Starting at about six weeks old, Lucia has
slept through the night, but that changed last month and we haven’t had a
single night of uninterrupted sleep since.
We can’t pinpoint a reason for her wakefulness at night. It might be the teething. It might be the interruptions in sleep
schedule caused by our two long trips out of state last month, either because
of the change in time zone or because of the new environments. It may be the two colds (her first
sicknesses) that she’s had in the past few months, which included stuffy noses
that made it almost impossible for her to breathe. Maybe it’s a combination of all these
things. We’ve been putting her to sleep
in her crib and then bringing her into the bed with us after she wakes up the
first time. I’m not going to lie, I like
cuddling through the night with her again, even if that means waking up
more.
We have one more
exciting bit of news, Lucia had her first food yesterday! We’ve been getting questions for a while from
family and friends (and strangers) about when we were going to start her on
solid food. At her last appointment, the
doctor suggested starting food at six months, but I’m a firm believer of
waiting until when the individual child is ready. I’ve also been wanting to wait as long as
possible, not just because I don’t want her growing up too fast, but because I
truly believe it’s healthiest to keep babies on breast milk only as long as
possible. But she’s been showing some
“readiness” signs lately and has enjoyed taking little tastes of food when
we’ve offered it, so I thought we might try a little. We are hoping to adhere more to baby-led solids (see Amy's great
guest post on baby-led weaning for more details)
than to any other feeding schedule, so when we had broccoli I just made a
little extra for her, continued to cook it longer than ours (until it was quite
mushy), and then mashed it with a fork.
I fed it to her with a spoon and she seemed to like it well enough,
although she was much more interested in the spoon than the green stuff on
it. I look forward to having her try
more foods, although at this point, it was quite obvious that she could take it
or leave it. I’m not going to go out of
my way to make any foods for her, but each time we make food for ourselves that
can easily be fed to a baby, we’ll put a little aside for her.
When I look at my
little girl, I still have a hard time believing that she’s my daughter and I’m
her mother. I’m with her all day,
yet every time I see her I am still overwhelmed by how adorable she is. I’m amazed by all she can do. I still can’t believe that God gave her to me
to care for and love and bring up. I
don’t feel worthy. But I’m thankful, so
very thankful for the wonderful gift from God that is my Lucia Rose.
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