6 months...

We've had a bit of a difficult time around here lately. In fact, I'm not even sure why that is so. I wrote a long whiny post about it a couple of days ago, posted it, re-read it and deleted it. Sometimes I just have to remind myself that Stella is a very content little baby - almost all the time. And when she is not, I almost have a nervous break-down. Pathetic. I think Stella is in the midst of the 26 weeks growth spurt. She wants to do so many things and gets frustrated when she can't yet do the things she wants to do (crawl, sit). On top of that she is completely and utterly impatient. With me in particular. We are too slow changing her diapers, making her food, etc. But that phase will pass. Paired with the fact that Stella is going through this growth spurt was the fact that I had gotten so used to having 3 people around me, who, during our vacation in Italy did lot's of the baby-tasks I usually do all day long, that I felt somehow exhausted when we came back and I had to do it by myself again during the days. Lastly, I think I missed my social life last week. With Stella screaming and fussing I didn't feel like meeting other people, so I sat with my head in the sand here at home being frustrated.

All is better now though, Stella is still in her growth spurt, but we have adjusted and I find her development amazing (as I usually do). She is so smart and puts a lot of attention to detail. She is investigative and interested. She has a very loud voice and sheer endless energy. She's half a year old.

In fact we had our 6 month check-up on Wednesday and here are the stats:
Weight: 7315 gram (that exactly 500 gram more than at 5 months)
Length: 68 cm (1.5 more than at 5 months)

There are so many other things going on, i.e. Stella loves to hit her toys onto the table and even scares herself a bit with the loud noise it makes. Stella rolls around and around and around. She's not sitting unassisted yet. Stella wants to crawl. She lies on her belly like a fish out of water and reaches for her toys, sometimes she does a whole circle on her belly. Today, in an attempt to get closer to her toy in front of her, she pulled back (away from the toy) with her arms. She wants to pull up her bum but doesn't know how yet. No teeth yet, although I can see 3 white spots in her gum (2 in her lower yaw, the other on top) and I think one of them will most likely make it's entrance within the next months or so. Stella sits in her stroller now. It still looks a bit shaky at times, and she actually lies down most of the time, but she loves it. The view, the things to look at. Oh my. She has discovered other children, she loves to look at other children playing in the park, in the store, etc. Lykke be prepared :-)

These days Stella gets bored by her toys rather quickly and she finds it more difficult to entertain herself (for a second or so), so after looking through her toys I actually understood what she means, most of them are a bit boring and intended for much younger children than 6 months old big babies. So today, we went to two toy stores and bought some new toys to play with and chew on and stimulate her growing intelligence and interest. Today's highlight was the swing on the playground though. I must confess that we had not been to a playground before with Stella (she just appeared too young for it) but today we put her in the swing and she loved it and we did too. Her eyes got bigger and bigger. We'll be back there tomorrow :-)


Since returning home from Tuscany Stella has started to wake up around 5-5:30 in the mornings. I'm not sure why, but I want her to go back to sleeping to 6-6:30, that one extra hour is vital for me and Jonatan. On the food front, Stella is still doing very good. I am so so happy about that and my heart swells just thinking about her happy face when she realizes it's food time. Besides potatoes, which she eats but really doesn't care for too much, Stella tries and swallows everything. I made meat puree last weekend, which I found horrible to make, but Stella enjoyed even that.

I wanted to write much earlier but I have been busy with a needy Stella, who OF COURSE has needs, she is a 6 months old baby, and she uses her sweet little loud baby voice to tell me that she has said need. On top of that, Stella and I have been buys enjoying the sunshine, playing with all toys that make lots of noise (Stella) and knitting (me). In fact, the happy news of not one but TWO successful adoptions by two blogging friends overseas, put me into a knitting frenzy :-), I'm loving it though.

Here some pictures of our 6 months old star:

Us in the park watching the birds flying around (very exciting!!!)


New toys...


swinging...

Ps: More pictures as usual on our Flickr site.