Andromeda is Half a Year Old!!!

Andromeda has officially passed the half year mark and I have to say it went by a lot faster than I was expecting given how slow it felt at times along the way (lack of sleep plays a strong role in perception...) At 6 months old, Andi weighs a whopping 15 lbs and is 26 inches long.  And I swear she packed on a good bit of that in just the last week.  I picked her up in the car seat carrier the other day and though "whoa, this is actually starting to feel heavy to me".  In terms of skill development, Andromeda can now sit upright by herself and is pretty darn sturdy when she does so.  She can lean in various directions and push herself back to upright as well.  And she prefers to be sitting upright whenever possible, a preference she has become quite vocal about in her stroller and the bathtub.  She discovered her "G" sounds.  Everything is "a-GA!"  In other vocal news, she now laughs as well and it is absolutely delightful!  It never fails to put a smile on our faces!  Andi has also discovered her feet and loves to grab them and use them to push at and feel things.  We've been working on tummy time too, which isn't her favorite, but she's starting to get really good at it!  In general this is a really fun age and we're loving watching Andi develop her skills and communicate with us more.

Sitting up like a big girl!

Chilling out on the patio in her fancy new chair with the deceivingly well behaved pups!

Combination tummy time and play time.  Getting strong!

Andromeda's new favorite place to hang out is the rug in our master bedroom.  It's a plush shag rug (meant to to muffle the sound of animal paws on the creaky wood floors in there) that she can sit on for hours and play with, so we've taken to hanging out with her in there when she gets fussy.  It's also a good area for morning stretches with daddy and kitty watching.

The cutest picture from behind while she marvels at the carpet.

Weekend stretches with daddy!

Sleep is getting better but still not stellar.  Andromeda can fall asleep on her own for bedtime and naps.  Naps were pretty crappy for a while (30 minutes max at home) but they're starting to improve.  Thankfully she takes some pretty decent naps at daycare.  She still wakes up 2-3 times per night to eat.  More when she's hitting a growth spurt or developmental milestone.  Those nights are pretty rough on me, especially when they fall on a work night.  But we're working on it.  And when she's awake during the day, even if she only took a cruddy 30 minute nap, she is usually the happiest, most smiley and cheerful baby, so we really can't complain too much.  Here are a few more pictures of our adventures from this past month.

Outfit #2 of the morning for both mommy and kiddo after a literal shit show...

Helping mommy bake!

First pool excursion since we last tried around 2 months old.  This time was more successful, though she remained slightly unsure.

Early dinner out at daddy's favorite brewpub!

And the final new development of the month is Andi's introduction to solid foods!  We are attempting to do a Baby Lead Weaning (BLW) approach where we give Andromeda large pieces of soft foods that she can pick up and feed to herself.  We've also tried a few spoon fed foods.  It's been going so-so.  Our first food that we tried a few times in both chunk and pureed form was sweet potatoes and Andi is firmly in the "hell no" camp when it comes to sweet potatoes.  Behold:

This started as chunks of steamed sweet potato.  It made its way onto her eyebrows, but not one piece of it entered her mouth...

Our first attempt with pureed sweet potatoes did not go well.

We have had better luck with other foods since the Sweet Potato Debacle of 2018.  So far Andromeda will happily pick up and feed herself bananas, nectarines, avocado, and watermelon.  Kid definitely has a bit of a sweet tooth.  We have tried carrots too and she's still eh on that one, so we'll keep working on it.  She likes to try eating what we're eating and I don't want to discourage her interest in food, so she's also had a taste of my grilled cheese sandwich, a piece of Uncle K's smoked brisket (she is a HUGE fan of this and gummed it to pieces - such a little Texan!), and a couple small spoonfuls of plain tart frozen yogurt.  I took advantage of that last one and had her try plain greek yogurt and she was a pretty big fan of that too.  Last food we tried was oatmeal and she was only "eh" so we'll keep working on it.  Coming up on the menu are zucchini, applesauce, and broccoli.

Mmmmm, banana!

Absolutely everything around her gets covered in green when she eats avocados...

 

Uncle K had us over for some smoked meats on Memorial Day

Texas baby enjoying some smoked brisket!

Successful taste test with watermelon

Weekend breakfast with mommy and daddy - we had eggs and toast and Andi had watermelon and brisket!

At the end of month 6 we had a family photo shoot with a photographer, so I'll work on getting those posted once we get them back.  Our sneak peaks so far look fantastic!  So that's it!  One half of a year with this sweet little peanut: