Baby Jane update

It's hard to believe, but Baby Jane's been around for more than 6 months now. 6+ months! Ay caramba, where has the time gone? I haven't done a proper update since Month 2, so I figured it's high time that I update you on what Baby Jane is up to these days.

Baby Jane has always been a fairly easy baby, and that trend definitely continues. She has a definite schedule now for eating, sleeping, and (most days) napping. Most days, she can be counted on to take a 2 hour nap (heaven!), sometimes longer. She has a regular bedtime and sleeps through the night (although we still are waking her up for a "dream feed" before we go to bed). The regular bedtime and sleeping through the night happened fairly early, about 2.5 months; the regular nap schedule is a recent thing. It is amazing what a difference this regularity makes: I can actually plan on getting things done during the day! (Of course, sometimes laying on the couch and watching bad daytime TV wins out, but hey, I figure once I start work, there goes any sort of downtime, so I'd better enjoy downtime now.)

The development stuff, though, is the really neat part of watching Baby Jane grow up. And there have been a lot of developmental milestones lately. The first was sitting up, which she did fairly early (just past 5 months). Then came eating solids. Her favorites so far are bananas and avocados, although she will pretty much eat anything we feed her. And now, she's on the cusp of crawling. She can get up on all fours and rock, but she hasn't quite figured out how to keep moving forward. (For a while, she could only move backwards, which frustrated her to no end.) She can pull both legs forward, but then she loses her balance and falls on her tummy. But she has figured out that she can get to something if she keeps doing this up to all fours-drag legs forward-fall routine. And when she wants something, she can get to it fairly quickly. Hence, the rush to baby-proof the house.

The other neat thing is watching Baby Jane's personality develop. She is very observant and very vocal. She's insistent when she wants something (and is sometimes hard to distract!), and is pretty strong-willed. She loves people! She smiles and laughs and has her own little games that she plays with Mr. Jane and me. (Mostly these involve head-butting, hair-pulling, or face-gnawing. Thank god she doesn't have teeth yet!) She is now an "interactive" baby, which makes interacting with her a lot more fun.

When I look at pictures of her, even from just a few months ago, it's hard to believe how different she looks and how much she's changed. Some days it feels like she's been around forever, while other days it feels like she just arrived. And I will admit that there are still some days where I feel like a babysitter rather than a parent, but these days are pretty rare.

At 6+ months, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on this parenting thing. It's still a wild yet thoroughly enjoyable ride.