Arianne at 6 Months

Wow – with two kids time REALLY goes by quickly. In her first 6 months she has:

She is one busy baby! Turning 6 months old brought about a lot of transitions. I went back to work full-time, and she started eating solid foods regularly. Her repertoire of foods includes rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, brown rice cereal, peas, carrots, fish, apples, and sweet potatoes.

Mmm baby food.

At first I was pumping 4 to 8 ounces of milk during the day at work which covered 2 out of 3 bottles that she’d have while I was gone. With the busyness of school, I haven’t been able to keep up with pumping regularly, so now she has formula while I’m gone and breastfeeds in the morning, late afternoon and evening.

She is an amazing sleeper! She sleeps regularly from 7pm to about 5am. If she’s sick she’ll wake up and be fussy, but otherwise she’ll just wake up and fuss if she wants her pacifier or has gotten scared of something. She also goes to sleep pretty easily. Well, anything might seem easy compared to Gabriel, who wanted to be rocked, breastfed and sung lullabies for at least one hour before going to sleep. Then he’d sleep for one hour and want the same routine again. Overall, Arianne is way more easygoing.

"Yes, I can play with Gabriel's toys!"

The most interesting part of watching her development is to see her interactions with Gabriel. She’s pretty fast now in her walker, to the point where I’ve been worried she’ll run into something and flip herself over! She’s like a little bumper car in that thing, and she chases Gabriel all around. It’s their favorite game and keeps them busy on most afternoons. She also likes to steal his toys, and if she has only “baby” toys (rattles, soft things, teethers), she doesn’t find those very exciting anymore. Ninja Turtles and trucks are much more appealing.

She can scoot around on her belly and crawl on her elbows. She just started pushing up on her hands and knees, so I think she’ll be crawling soon. She’s very curious and social.