6 months – Peanut Smiles

Katelyn,

I have been trying to figure out a way to write the first paragraph of this letter for over 3 months. I’ve written and deleted something probably 15 different times and nothing seems quite good enough. This month we had the honor of baptizing you and officially welcoming you into God’s family/church. And I’ve been attempting to put into words how Gods work is imprinted into the sparkle of your eyes, the soft touch of your cheek, the smell of vanilla on your hair, the roll of skin on your thighs, the calmness of your babbles, the love your siblings have for you and the awesomeness of God that I’ve seen in my life and hope you will too. After umpteen times of writing and re-writing, I’ve figured out that no words or story could possibly summarize the strength and importance faith can have in your life. I see, experience and thank God for his miracles in my life everyday. I pray that as you grow up, you too, will choose this path. Baptism, is the first of many, I believe my role is in being your mom. I promise to do my best to live a life of example and set a solid Christian foundation for you as well as pray that you will allow Jesus into your heart and that someday YOU will choose to put God at the center of your life.

Everything about you is a little miracle from God my sweet girl. Your tender heart, your calmness, your adaptability, your sleeping and eating patterns are all little sprinkles of miracles from the big guy upstairs.

Most nights you sleep about 10 hours straight each night (7:30pm – 5:00pm). The first time you wake up, I’ll pop your pacifier back in and you’ll sleep for another 30-60 minutes. The second time you wake up, you’ll usually be happy and chatty as a bird. As soon as I enter, you quiet down and light up with a huge smile and squinty eyes once you see my face. You’re still not rolling over from back to front so we’ve continued to swaddle you. For bedtime, you’ll nurse and then I’ll swaddle you up, turn off the lights, put a blanket next to your face and snuggle with you in the rocking chair and you’re out in less than 5 minutes. If I’m in the middle of putting the big kids to bed, I’ll just put you down awake in your crib and you fall asleep, without a peep. Naps range from 2-3 a day and anywhere from 20 min to 2+ hours, in your crib swaddled in a muslin blanket.

Nursing is still going well. Each morning, I’ll nurse you on my left (non-dominate side) and then pump the right as I’ll get 6-7oz. Then for the remainder of the day I usually nurse or pump both sides. The morning session, I’ll usually get 5oz and 3-4 in the afternoon. Most nights, I’ve still been pumping before I go to bed around 11 or 12 and will get another 6 oz. So all up, I’m producing an extra 6-10oz of milk each day that I’ve been stock-pilling in the freezer. With all that said, I’m still super stressed about it, more so than I remember with the other two and I’m not sure why I can’t relax about it. Moving on. This month you started to show a ton of interest in my food. I started to give you little pieces of bread and then spontaneously decided to give you some baby squash one night and you LOVED it. You ate the entire container and would open your mouth every time I brought up the spoon. Considering we skipped the rice cereal, you did a pretty amazing job keeping the food in your mouth and not spitting it all out.

You’ve FINALLY started to roll from your stomach to your back–it doesn’t happen very often, but you can do it. You love to lay (on your back) on you playmat and play with toys hanging from it. We also brought out the exersaucer this month and you do pretty good in that (as long as we have a blanket behind you to prevent you from flopping around like a fish.) This month you’ve also started to take your pacifier out of your mouth and put it back in with 50% rate. Your favorite place is in mommy’s arms and are as happy as can be just leaching onto me and tagging along wherever I go. If we put you down and walk away, you throw a fit, but are as happy as a puppy when we’re back within arms reach.

As far as the details go for your Baptism, the actual celebration was on Sunday, December 3rd. We celebrated at St. Andrew’s Church in Mahtomedi, same church your brother and sister were baptized at and that Mommy and Daddy were married at. All of your extended family was there to celebrate and you are blessed to have Uncle Dustin as your Godfather and two Godmothers, Auntie Beca and Auntie Rael. You were a total gem throughout the ceremony and wore the family heirloom baptismal gown, and the 26th baby to wear it! Following the ceremony, we headed over to Grammy and Papa’s house for a dual celebration for your baptism and Lexi’s 5th Birthday!

1st’s for the month: Thanksgiving, Snowfall, Food, Christmas celebrations (school concert, dance recital, music, decorations, shopping! (including Black Friday shopping!) sibling birthday party.

6 month stats

Weight: 15.1 oz
Length: 25″
Head circumference:
Clothes: 3-6 month
Diapers: size 2

We are so blessed to have you be a part of our family and I thank God for you and all of your little blessings everyday. You are perfect in every way possible and I love you to pieces little Kate the Great!

Love,

Mama

Dear William,

How is it possible I am writing your 6 month post? How are we already half way through your first year of life? In my mind, you’re still 3 months old and I’m shocked at what you’re capable of. This month felt like a game-changer in your development. You learned to sit up, roll over, fall asleep on your own and through the night and started baby food. You continue to be the happiest and smiliest baby ever. Seriously, when you smile, your whole face lights up and it is the best ever.

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Stats

Height

Weight

Head Circumference

Sleep

This month we bit the bullet and did some sleep training. It was a very random decision. I put you down one evening after lots of fussing and decided on the spot that we were going to sleep train you. After 20 minutes of crying, I went in, put your pacifier back in your mouth, rubbed your belly a little and walked out. You cried for another 20 minutes and then fell asleep. Then around 5, you woke up and I went and fed you and you feel asleep while eating. The next evening, you cried for 20 minutes or so. When you woke up around 4, I just let you fuss and again, after about 20 minutes you fell back asleep. I think part of your challenge with sleeping was you were on the cusp of rolling over from back to front. I would watch you on the monitor and you kept trying to roll and would get 98% of the way,give up and roll back. After 4-5 nights of this, you figured out how to roll over and would then fall asleep without crying as soon as I laid you to down. On average, we’re putting you to bed as close to 8 as possible and you sleep until 6 or 6:30. I can’t tell you what a big difference this has made in my attitude and co-coherence. I wish I would have done it weeks earlier. I feel like I can function again and am just more positive in general. Naps at home are better too. We haven’t swaddled you in a long time and you’ll fall asleep within 5 minutes of being put down and will sleep anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours. Although you’re able to roll onto your tummy, you usually just roll onto your side and sleep that way. Sleep at daycare is better but still a pretty questionable. You will fall asleep in your crib, but usually only sleep between 15-45 min. I think it is just too light and noisy in there and have assumed that you won’t sleep well there ever. I would love it if you surprised me though!

Eating

Eating is still great. You switch between bottles and nursing great. You’ve continued to show lots of interest in our food and over the past week or so seemed more hungry or that milk wasn’t enough for you anymore. So I dug out the highchair and mixed up some rice cereal and you loved it! You kept trying to reach for the spoon and would eagerly open your mouth for more. Because it is a glorified liquid, a lot of it fell out of your mouth and was all over your neck and bib, but you did finish the whole bowl. The following day, you tried some squash. You ate several bites and never turned it down or made a face of disgust, but didn’t seem to love it as much as the rice cereal. You’ve also had green beans, pears and bananas. Much to my surprise, two little teeth popped through your bottom gums at the very end of the month. Surprisingly, you weren’t too crabby or didn’t drool a whole lot more than normal!

Development

Two major milestones this month, both of which happened within a couple days of each other. First, you learned to sit up by yourself! Yeah! Such a game-changing milestone and new perspective of the world for you. Being able to sit up with a few toys in front of you makes you so much more content with life. Additionally, the length of time you can sit up without tumbling over has increased very quickly! The second milestone was rolling over both ways. These two milestones have mellowed you out a bit. You seem much more content with life and less of a squirming-worming whenever you’re being held. You continue to love your playmat and exersaucer. You enjoy this toy much more then Lexi ever did, but can still see through us as we often put you in there so we can get something. i.e. make dinner or clean up. Other favorite activities include peek-a-boo. You can be in a full out cry and we start to play peek-a-boo and you are all smiles and laughter. You also LOVE to be tickled, like Whoa! You’re ticklish everywhere and love to laugh. You do talk and babble, but I think Lexi overshadows you a bit in that department and it is hard to talk over all her chatter. You are definitely a mama’s boy. You’re happiest in my arms and am constantly looking for me or follow me around a room when I’m not next to you.

Other occurrences

We went to the cabin one weekend and you did a great job in the car for both rides as well as sleeping. I put you in the ergo several times and I was surprised at how well you did in it! You’re such a little cuddle bug and love to snuggle!

Big sister Lexi still adores you, but is WAY too rough with you. Most of the time she is trying to be sweet, but her ‘love pats’ turn into hits and her hugs turn into laying on top of you. Good intentions, but we need to work on the execution a bit. There are also times, when she just straight up hits and kicks you or rips things from your hands. It often feels like these moments of yelling and timeouts leave me feeling depleted and like I’m speaking to the walls as she repeatedly does that same thing over again. In the grand scheme of things, there are probably more sweet moments than naughty as she really does love you and loves to take care of you. Just yesterday you were fussing in the exersaucer while I was making dinner and she ran into the kitchen and asks where your nookie is because you are crying. There was also a thunderstorm and she gave you her giraffe so you could be brave from the thunder. Then, she was dancing and spinning her windmill around and had you laughing hysterically. These are the moments that I hope to remember and not the yelling and timeouts that often get the best of me.