Today I Am Six Months Old

We woke Yarden this morning with a rousing rendition of "Happy Half-Birthday" and a special "BIRTH-QUAKE!!!"
She seemed non-plussed - sleepy, but smiley & happy to see us.

She celebrated at school by eating lots & sleeping little.
I had major dental work done (ow) and found an awesome consignment shop that has Splendid baby shirts for $10 a piece (wow).

Here are some pictures from little mama's big day.

She now turns the pages of her books by herself.

Yarden's Big Weekend

With her 6 month half-birthday approaching, Seamus and I keep planning to do a photo shoot with Yarden with an array of accouterments so that whatever she shows an affinity for later in life, we'll have that predictive baby photo from her first 6 months of life. Yarden with a guitar, in a swimming pool, wearing a chef's hat, in a spacesuit, playing poker...the list is exhausting.

But in the real world, Yarden has actually been racking up the experiences - and this weekend added a few more to the list.

This morning at 9 AM, Y & I had our first infant swim class. There are only a few other babies in the class, Conner is my favorite. He's got two dads who showed up for class with a flip video camera. They also helped me with Yarden so that I could go pee (Note to self: Why did I think it would be easy to navigate a public locker room and bathing suits for both of us on my own when I can barely get out of the Burke Williams locker area without losing the key attached to my wristband?)

Yarden checks out the water.

Conner & his parents.

The swim lesson was awesome. The water was so warm and the class environment so friendly that I didn't even mind being in a bathing suit in public. Yarden loves to splash and kick and was braver than her mommy when it was time to dip completely under the water. We did a water version of "Wheels on the Bus" - already one of her favorites - and water "Ring Around The Rosie" ("splashes, splashes - we all fall down").

After that, Y and I headed home to shower, nap and head out to Baby Loves Disco.
I can't beat an article my brillliant friend Anna Cranage Conathan wrote about Baby Loves Disco
so I'll just share her article.

Three days have passed and I still haven't posted, so here are some updates ...

Mila Jovovich was in my Tuesday swim class. Ron Livingston was at the pool too. I'm now slightly more self conscious about my bikini body.

A group of 11 other moms and I are starting an Industry Moms support community to help balance the babies we love and the careers we nurture (and vice versa). We had our first planning meeting on Sunday and I've built us a blog - website to launch soon. We've got 100 members so far :)

And Outside The Box continues to meet at my house every Sunday. The activity this week was water tornados and puppet play. Click here for photos, including Yarden looking really blase about the activity.

I'm super tired, but feeling good.
Prop 8 is going to get overturned, I can feel it in my bones.
Trading Spaces is wrapping up and things look good for ideas I've brought to my employers.
I'm about to kick off 2 months of time off with my daughter with 10 days in NY.
Then I get to start a dream job on Hell's Kitchen.
Big picture I have a husband and daughter I adore, small picture I'm about to fall asleep watching the end of the Paul Rudd SNL from last week.

Life is good.

And Yarden's pretty happy too.