Yarden at Six Months

We don't have a baby book.
We haven't recorded the frst time that Yarden rolled over, or the first spoonful of rice cereal, or when her first tooth finally broke through her gums.

What we do do is obsessively photograph our daughter and sporadically blog about our family's - in which she figures centrally.

So - with her 24 week mark behind us and her official 1/2 birthday coming up on Nov 19th, it seems like a good time to use the blog to take stock of all the things our girl is up to.

Yarden is now 17 pounds and 25 inches long/tall.
She can roll to pretty much wherever she wants to get to within a room. No crawling yet.
She can sit up on her own, but eventually keels over. That head is big.
(So far) she's never rolled off the bed or been dropped.

Yarden's default temperament is sweet and loving - generous with her big flirty gummy smiles and no fear of strangers. Even at gatherings with lot of babies, like at her school, we get told she should model (hmmm....)

She has 2 tiny, tiny sharp teeth (like the size of a crumb of feta) poking up on the bottom row and she sometimes uses them to bite my nose, and occasionally my boob. And speaking of beating us up, she pulls my hair (hard enough to get out strands), grabs daddy's eye, and I've seen her pull Oso's cheek.

She is big enough to stand in the exersaucer and the bouncer and she loves both.
She wears 9 month size clothing and (despite my best efforts) she outgrew adorable things before she had a chance to wear them.

In the last month, she's been needier than usual (doesn't like it if we leave the room), but can still be cheered up with a hug or the ABC song, Her favorite game is still EARTHQUAKE!!! (see the bottom of the Oct 29th entry if you've never seen this game). On the other hand, the trick of running a finger down the bridge of her nose doesn't make her close her eyes anymore and it's harder to get her to sleep.

She's eaten rice cereal, peas, & squash.

She is no longer fully swaddled at night, just under the arms.


And her favorite blanket is the one I made her :)

The View From My Toilet Seat

Yarden's figured out how to roll and she needed a space to practice, so we've remodeled the living room to accommodate her new hobby.

We got rid of the futon/guest bed and moved the table - replacing the grown up furniture with 72 square feet of Alphabet Puzzle Foam.

Here's Yarden enjoying her new room.

But it turns out that Alphabet Puzzle Foam is to dogs what catnip is to cats.
Yarden may like the new setup, but Oso loves it.
He can't stay away.

SOOO - the full 72 feet gets covered with dog hair.
We've tried brooms. mops, wet swiffer, lint roller, and old fashioned getting down on hands and knees with a wet sponge.
None of that works.
Since we have playgroups at the house once a week, we have to keep it better than clean.
We have to keep it "up to 8 other parent's standards" clean.
(see photo below)

So Seamus has come up with a solution. Wash them in the shower and hang them dry.

As I type, this is the view from our toilet.
I love my ingenious husband.