A Letter To My Six (!) Month Old

Dear Vivian,

Happy half a year on this earth! We’ve managed to figure out how to keep a little preemie girl growing and happy and you’ve put up with us as we’ve spent the past several months figuring it out. Thanks for your patience. (Like you had any choice in the matter.)

Six months feels like a milestone to me. The first few weeks, even months, we were just courting. You know, trying to figure each other out, what the needs were, what your likes and dislikes are, and all on a miniscule amount of sleep.

Lately things have seemed no less busy, but a little more predictable. Now that I’m back to work full-time (not exactly by choice), we have a little more consistency to our schedule.

What have you been up to lately? Well, some things haven’t changed:

·         You still happily greet each new day with smiles and wiggles.

·         Your feet never sit still. Seriously. In retrospect, it may not have been wise for two very active people to have a child. It may have created some sort of synergistic effect and we’ll never be able to keep up once you’re vertical. I may or may not be a bit afraid of this.

·         You love baths like whoa.

What are some things that are new? Well:

·         Your feet must have a little seasoning on them that I’m not aware of because you think they’re pretty delicious. All I see are toe fuzzies, but you seem impressed. You also giggle when I blow raspberries on the pads of your feet. I love hearing those laughs, even if it means I nibble on smelly little toes in order to hear them.  

·         You laugh now! Like for real laugh, not something that resembles a bird being strangled. It’s pretty cute, and I keep working on new ways to get more laughs out of you. I look like fool most of the time. The things you do for a few baby chuckles.  

·         The whole loving baths thing is old news, but the splashing your feet and creating hurricane force waves is new. I probably need to wear a poncho from now on while scrubbing you down.

·         You smile like someone’s taking your picture…of course, when I actually do try to get a picture of it, you go all poker faced. I resent that.

·         Your eyes have lightened up since you were born. I just noticed that this week. You have lovely blue eyes, which I think might actually stick. At the very least I’m guessing they’ll be a greenish-blue.



"What's all the excitement about cereal, Mom?"



·         You roll over more easily from back to belly than from belly to back. Normally it’s the other way around but, like your mama, you do things the difficult way first. That one arm always seems to get you and you get so mad that you start making pterodactyl shrieks at it, but you’re finally moving past it and flopping onto your belly.

·         Trying cereal*: We got permission from your pediatrician to try it and despite our original plan to hold off on cereal and just wait until it’s time for solids, we decided to introduce it to you. You were having a cranky weekend, so I’m not sure if you really liked it or not but you ate a sizeable serving without much complaint. Until it got cold, and then you had a meltdown until I warmed it back up.

·         We set up your command center last weekend, and by command center I mean your exersaucer. I can’t even articulate how excited you were when we plopped you in the seat. For the first time we got an entire 30 minutes without either of us holding you while you were awake! And more importantly, it’s so fun to watch you play. I have to put the My Brest Friend pillow underneath your feet since you’re not tall enough to touch the floor yet, but that didn’t thwart your enthusiasm.

Ped’s visit stats:

Height: 23 ½ inches (I think)
Weight: 11 lbs 11 oz

You’re still “hovering below the 0 percentile” as far as weight is concerned, but you’re following your own average at a normal, reassuring rate. By your 9 month visit you might actually show up on the chart! You’re just a fun-sized baby and that’s just fine with us.

The doctor said that in the next month or so we can begin introducing solids to you and also giving you a sippy cup—sippy cup?! Already?!—with even a little water in it. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that, but as Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls said, “If you hold a bird gently, he’ll stay. But if you squeeze him…his eyes will bug out.”

Moral of the story? I can’t keep trying to squeeze you in my favorite yet too-small-for-you outfits forever. And you’re probably only going to tolerate milk for so long before you start grabbing at our food. But let’s just take baby steps getting there, mmkay?  

Lots more to share next time. Tomorrow we go for a little test where you’ll experience a few firsts: first MRI, first encounter with anesthesia, and first time you’ll witness Mama trying not to freak out about it all. But more on that later.

I love you to the moon and back, little Vivi girl.

Love,

Mama

*Some people have very strong feelings about giving cereal. As in, “I’m not really going to call you a bad parent because you give your baby cereal bbuuuuuut if the shoe fits….”
Just know that before you flash your Super Mom badge at me and lecture about why there’s little to no nutritional value in cereal and how alarming levels of arsenic are showing up in the rice, it will fall upon deaf ears. You do what’s best for your family, and I’ll do what’s best for mine. I’m an informed parent. I do my research. Case closed.