six months

This post is overdue by three weeks, but better late than never, right?

I did take the pictures on the day she turned six months old... just didn't upload them and write this post in a very timely fashion this month, that's all.

Nell at six months old has been so much fun.  Just the other day I said to someone, "I'm not saying I want her to stay little forever, but I don't think I'd mind if she stayed six months old for another six months or so."

At her six month checkup, she weighed in at 20 lbs, 1 oz.

No teeth yet for this girl.  Sometimes she has a few extra-drooly days, or seems fussy, and we wonder if she might be teething, but so far all those times have left us with nothing to show for them yet!

She has been sitting unsupported since she was about five-and-a-half months old, and it has opened a new world of possibility, a world in which I can set her down on a blanket with some toys, and she can play happily by herself for a while.  I love watching her explore her toys (she loves her stacking cups!) and interact with her environment, and I'm so pleased that she can entertain herself for brief periods of time.

{My brother, Nell's Uncle Jonathan was out here recently for a business trip, and got to spend some time with us.  He mentioned that I must be photoshopping Nell's pictures to make her eyes look so blue.  I promise I'm not.  I'm not that clever.  In the light they do sometimes look piercingly blue... and sometimes in photos her hair looks far more red than it does in person.  No intentional misleading going on here!}

Dear Ellen,

I have been marveling lately at how motherhood is changing me.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, not only that I am changing, but that I am returning to an earlier and somehow fuller sense of myself, if that makes any sense.  I always knew that I wanted to be a mom.  Oh Nell, being YOUR mom is such a privilege.  The experience of being your mama has been drawing me back to a truer sense of myself - of my interests, my beliefs, and my understanding of my purpose in life.

You do the cutest things these days.  Your happy noises make everyone around you smile.  You pump your arms and squeeze your tummy tight when you get really excited about something.

  You are learning how to splash during your bath times in the kitchen sink.  And you have developed a funny habit of circling your ankles repeatedly while watching your feet intently, particularly when you're wearing your pajamas with the giraffes or the panda bears on the feet.  Those fascinate you.

You love faces, and are particularly fond of grabbing them whenever they are within arms' reach.  There's nothing sweeter to me in the world than seeing you reach for my face, and feeling your little hands on my cheeks.

Of course, you're also pretty adept at grabbing glasses, necklaces, and earrings, too.

The past six months have been the best, but also some of the most emotionally conflicted I've ever experienced.  It has been really hard for me to have to leave you with babysitters sometimes while I teach in the afternoons, or while I go play rehearsals and concerts in the evenings.  Your Dad and I are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating as you continue to grow and change, as we work to figure out if I should work, how much I should work, when I should work, and so forth.  These are not easy decisions to make.

I'm sure we'll make some wrong decisions along the way, but I hope you'll grow up knowing that we love you like crazy, and that we will always be striving to be the very best parents we can be.

Lovelovelove,

Mom