Tera Evelynne: 6 months

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Tera Evelynne- you are half a year old! I cannot believe how much you have changed in these last 6 months. I also cannot believe that we are halfway to a year. I cannot imagine our lives without you and we are loving watching you grow up! You are such a delightful, adorable and good baby.

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Weight/Length: A little over 13 pounds. Our petite little peanut!

I have no idea how long she is at this point…I know she slightly above average in length.

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Eating: Tera continues to breastfeed without any issues. She still eats every three hours. Sometimes she goes four hours…but this is not very common.

On Monday of this week, we took the plunge and started solids. This girl LOVES food! So far her favorites are squash and pears. And she doesn’t seem to like broccoli or carrots too much. We have tried squash, carrots, broccoli, spinach, apple, pear and mango. Everything I’ve read said that at first, the baby will just be spitting the food out, and it will take a little while for her to learn to swallow. Well, her diapers tell a different story…this girl is actually EATING her food. YAY!!!! We are doing a combination of baby led weaning and the traditional mush baby food. I will feed Tera some mushed apple/pear/mango/carrot/broccoli, and then when we all sit down to eat, I will give that same food- whole (An apple/pear/mango/carrot slice or a steamed broccoli head). She absolutely LOVES feeding herself. It entertains her for a VERY long time. And we love having all three of us sitting at the table eating together.

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See the squash stains on her onesie? I thought about changing it for the pictures…but #reallife

Sleeping: Well, I have good news and bad news!

The good news is: Tera has slept through 4/5 nights this week! HALLELUJAH I’M A NEW WOMAN! I cannot explain how good it feels to wake up to the morning light cracking through the windows and realize that I SLEPT THE WHOLE NIGHT! (And by “the whole night” I mean 6 hours straight. 6 HOURS!)

The bad news is: Tera is a little trickster, and has decided to try whatever she can to get out of naps. Screaming at the top of her lungs? Yep. Rolling over? Yep. Spitting out the paci? Yep. Fighting with every ounce of strength to keep her eyes open? Yep. *Sigh*. I guess we can’t win all our battles, huh?

Once she falls asleep, though, she tends to take two decent naps (1-2 hours), and sometimes one smaller nap in the evening.

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Clothing/Diapers: Since we did so much traveling in December/January, I kind of fell off the cloth diaper bandwagon. But, I’m happy to say that we are back on it!

My biggest problem with cloth diapering is timing the wash right. I often find myself putting Tera in disposables because we are completely out of cloth. And soaking, washing and drying the cloth diapers takes at least a whole day (at least in the winter). So I’m trying to do better at starting the wash BEFORE we run out, so that we don’t really ever run out.

Tera is fitting perfectly into 3-6 month clothes. I have a couple of outfits that are six months that look just fine on her, but for now we are comfortably staying in 3-6 months.

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Personality: Tera is absolutely adorable. I don’t know if that is a personality trait, but she just attracts people to her wherever she goes!

She will smile at anyone and everyone, and loves attention of any kind.

She has started to laugh, and she is also a talkative little thing! Her “talking” always comes out more like screaming, though. She just squeels and schreeches. The other day we were in a store and Theo had Tera with him. I heard schreeching all the way across the store, and seriously thought that it was someone’s cart. Nope. It was Tera. Haha. It’s a good thing everyone thinks she is adorable!

She is starting to become very opinionated. She wants to be with us wherever we are. She does not want to take a nap. She wants to touch Moose, my phone or the book that I’m reading. She wants to sit at the dinner table and eat with us. It’s all so fun to watch, but we are also approaching that time when we will have to begin to correct her sinful tendencies (and believe me…she has them!)

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Loves:

  • Moose
  • Daddy
  • Anything that Mommy is holding
  • Food, especially pears, apples and squash
  • Riding in the car
  • Bath time (splashing Daddy!)
  • Playing with her toys!

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Dislikes:

  •  Getting out of the bath
  • Taking a nap
  • Getting into her car seat (once buckled in she is fine though…)
  • Being left alone in a room

New Developments:

  • Sitting on her own

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  • Eating food
  • Scooting/spinning while doing tummy time…she doesn’t seem to know how to get from point A to point B, but if left on her tummy long enough she will end up in a completely different location than the one she started in!
  • Grabbing at things…especially using her new-found pincher grasp!

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  • Up on hands and knees

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  • Attachment to Mommy and Daddy (cries when left with someone else)

Daddy and Mommy:
It would be an understatement to say we have gone through a lot of changes in the past 6 months. I think that all the changes have brought us through a lot of stress…and we are both feeling the pressures from job, family, friendships and being parents. Plus it never helps that it is the winter. But this is when we remember the vows that we said, and we re-commit to do “better” or “worse” with each other. And through that, I have found that the love we have for each other is much more than the feelings that we started out with.

I’m adjusting to this stay-at-home Mom gig, and finding ways to get myself out of the house occasionally. I’m SOOO looking forward to Spring, when Tera and I can go for long walks around our neighborhood.

Theo is continuing to work- both at work and at home. The home renovations are coming along, and I’m so proud of him for all the hard work that he does when he is home. It’s not always easy living in a reno! Theo got “transferred” (it’s a LONG story) to Cincinnati, so now his drive is only 45 minutes! Woohoo! He starts that gig tomorrow, and other than the location, nothing has changed.

I absolutely cannot believe how quickly 6 months has gone by. I bet the next 6 will go just as fast….but I don’t want to think about that!

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And just to leave you with one more “from the cutting room floor”…it is getting harder and harder to take these monthly pictures of Tera!

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