Six months

Chloe is now SIX, count 'em, SIX months old. Doesn't that sound somehow .... older? It does to me. Six months is when I have found that babies get *really* fun - not that they are a snooze-fest before that (how ironic that I would use the term "snooze-fest" to describe the first 5 months ...) but my babies have always seemed to be so much more interactional and fun at this point.

And Chloe does not disappoint. I commented to Chad the other day - this has been a month full of milestones.

Here are a few:

Rolling over ... which she sometimes does in her sleep and then wakes up screaming!

Eating at the table with us. She is now eating 2 "meals" a day. We also decided to ditch the big ol' highchair in favor of a booster highchair strapped onto one of our kitchen chairs. Our kitchen is just so tight with 5 people now that we didn't want one more thing to trip over. You think I'm kidding. Carter probably bumps his head on our kitchen island once a day because it's so tight in there space-wise.

Chloe has now graduated to the exersaucer. The swing is now folded up and ready to go to the attic. A little bittersweet...

Sitting up and playing with toys. Of course she eventually falls over but she can sit for periods of time now.

Purposeful attention-getting behavior. Chloe will sit on the floor (or in her high chair, etc.) and *try* to make eye contact ... if that fails, she starts making noises intended to get your attention. And once she does get your attention, you are rewarded with a great big smile.

Longer sleeping at night. It is not perfect yet, but she no longer eats at night (like, she goes 12 hours without a feeding!) And I am starting that lovely process abbreviated CIO ... cry it out, baby. I hate it, but it works, and I know she just needs to learn to put herself back to sleep at this point. She goes to bed beautifully, but she wakes up usually once during the night and wants her pacifier, attention, etc. (Lest you call child services, I usually do some kind of initial check to make sure she isn't suffocating and/or a sniff-test to makes sure she isn't sitting in a diaper full of doo-doo or something ...)

And last but not least - scootching (SP?) around .... she normally scootches herself each night from one end of the crib to the other. By morning her head is up against the far bumper. Oh boy. My other 2 were back sleepers and hated their tummies so they crawled late. I have a feeling it's gonna be different with this one ...

So far Chloe is a laid-back little lady. I think being the third ... she kind of has to be. There are 2 older siblings *constantly* shouting or laughing loudly in her face and the funny thing to me is that she seems to enjoy it. (I personally find my kids being up in my face annoying, at least when it's LOUD. Soft hugs and kisses are fine, but yelling in my face? not my favorite.)

So far Audrey gets the prize for being able to make Chloe laugh out loud. She can usually manage to get laughter out of her in a way that none of the rest of us can. You can already see the big sister idolatry happening .... Chloe just follows Audrey around with her eyes and smiles at everything she says and does. (Those of you who know Audrey will know how much she revels in this ...) haha

In other non-Chloe-related news ... Audrey and I have spent the week battling sickness and both recently took trips to the doctor. We both have ear/sinus infections. Now Chloe is waking up with crusty green stuff all over her nose. January is just too much fun around here! I just keep reminding myself - at least this is just a "normal" illness, and not something serious.

And of course, as every mother knows - "This too shall pass" ...