Six months old?
Six months old!
....sitting up on her own (she can now do it easily and safely without the pillow support)...
Wow, six months has absolutely flown by. Who can believe that it was six months ago that this gorgeous creature came into our lives? (Well, she had already been in our lives for about nine months before that, but we finally got to look into her eyes and hear her voice for the first time.) When I first saw Paloma, I simply thought: That's my baby. It's as though I had known her all along.
One month later, I was still enjoying maternity leave. My days totally revolved around Paloma and her naps. I thought I would get heaps of little fun, crafty projects done, write a paper or two, organise my recipe collection. But nothing got done apart from taking care of Paloma.
At two months, Paloma celebrated Christmas in Taos. She had quite a little personality already, and everyone noticed just how curious she was. She was intrigued by the lights and decorations, the wrapping paper and the new toys.
By the time Paloma was three months old, I was back into the swing of things at work. Actually, that's not quite true. I was back at work, and we were coping with the interrupted sleep and long days. Paloma seemed to settle into daycare pretty quickly. This photo was taken before we really understood how to read her tired signs - the poor little thing looks exhausted! Now we know better, she goes to bed earlier, and gets a good few hours of sleep in before waking us up (we're still working on sleeping right through the night!).
Paloma acquired a new skill at about four months - she sat up in the high chair! This was a major breakthrough. She loved being at our level and seeing what was going on while we ate dinner, and we kind of loved not having her in our arms all the time (or fending off Semilla while Paloma rolled around on a rug on the floor).
When Paloma was five months old, we went to visit her great-grandmommy in Carlsbad and she was able to show off by standing up (with support). Those skinny little legs are strong! Looks as though she might take after her Daddypapa...
And, now (wow!) she is six months old. And she has so many new skills, including:
....sitting up on her own (she can now do it easily and safely without the pillow support).......holding her own bottle, thank you very much...
...making friends and opening gifts (thanks Sevi!)...
...having naps whenever and wherever she likes (e.g., after playing all day with Daddypapa and George).
Her newest skill is very exciting to us: eating solids/mushed up goopy stuff. I'm kind of sad that I don't have the sole responsibility for providing Paloma's food anymore, but I'm also very happy that she is enjoying trying new things and learning about new tastes and textures. What an adventure!
Here is a video of Paloma's first real meal. We find it so endearing and quite hilarious, but we're her parents.
Once she had mastered the sloppy food, we moved straight on to the real stuff.
(Not really, we were testing to see if celery really could help with teething.)
Did Semilla surprise you?!
