Happy six month birthday, Emily.

Half a year. Oh my god. I just hope there’s some sort of Frequent Flyer program for the number of times I’ve used the phrase “time flies”. Emily is no longer a newborn. Oh no. She is a full grown child now – practically a woman! Don’t believe me? Just look at this impressive list of milestones that our little upstart has accomplished the past month:

• Emily surprised us all on the day after Christmas by rolling from her back to her front. But there she was – stuck like beached whale until someone mercifully flipped her back over. Well she’s finally figured out how to roll from her front to her back. That’s right, a complete roll! For the longest time, though, she could only roll over her left side. So it was safe to leave her on the couch as long as she was facing the correct direction. The worst she could do was roll towards the back of the couch. Until last week. I blame Emily completely for lulling me into a false sense of confidence and take no blame whatsoever for her first nosedive onto the floor. That was a traumatic 15 minutes. More for her than for me. I knew she’d be fine once the swelling went down.
• We’ve achieved singing (or yelling) and we’ve achieved the sticking out of the tongue. It was only a matter of time before the two were put together. That’s right, we’re now blowing raspberries. It was hysterical when I saw her do it for the first time last week. I couldn’t help but return the gesture. We must have sat there and spit at each other for well over 10 minutes – laughing wildly the whole time.
• Yes, there’s plenty of laughing. Enough to merit an entire bullet point. You see, even though Emily has been laughing for months now, it was always because we made her laugh. Nowadays she’ll giggle when we arrive home from a walk, when she’s undressed and on her way to a bath, when we try and get her to say Mama or Dada (yes, she laughs at us), or when she’s just in a good mood – which is most of the time.
• As has been mentioned in previous blog entries, Emily has done away with her baby carriage and can now be seen cruising around in her big-girl stroller. The transition was easy and she really enjoys seeing the world go by when we’re out on the town.
• Emily loves to grab her feet. Either when she’s lying on her back or sitting up, feet are the new fists.
• Probably that first major milestone reached in her short career, Emily has supplemented the boob with eating real food. We started with rice cereal a couple of weeks ago and it went down a storm. She still makes “the yucky face” when she eats but she never says no to another spoonful. She’s even got her own highchair now for mealtimes. And she doesn’t just sit there and open her mouth. No, Emily is a take change kinda lady and insists on holding the spoon herself, even though I’ve tried to explain to her that her fine motor skills are about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. Just this week we tried to start her on fruit. Banana, with it’s ease of mushiness, was a clear choice to begin with. Emily was not convinced. The sweet flavor was just too much for her and we couldn’t convince her to keep any of it in her mouth. Today we tried mushed apples and, after the initial shock, we had more luck. We’re planning on starting her on pork chops and sauerkraut next week.
• We thought that Emily might have started teething about this time last month but she never really made up her mind. Whenever she cried for no apparent reason, it was easy to blame it on teething, but then there was no follow-up. She would go for days without complaining. Imagine my surprise when, during a normal daddy-finger-chewing session this week, I felt the razor sharp tip of Emily’s first tooth! Looking very much like a grain of rice stuck to her lower gums, this tooth is a major reason why I now see Emily as more of a young adult than a baby. Jan says that breastfeeding has noticeably changed.
• I had been anxiously awaiting this moment for the past three months. There was no other event in the foreseeable future that got me more excited. Last week, Emily went swimming for the first time. I kid you not, I was buzzing with anticipation. We tried to sign up for baby swim classes at our gym but there was a four month waiting list. And we can’t just take her to any old pool because it really needs to be heated, and those are hard to come by. Lucky for us my friend Danny, along with his wife Veronica and their son Sammy, invited us to go with them to a lovely heated indoor pool just outside of Barcelona. We got Emily some swim-nappies and a Juls bought Emily her first bathing suit (a little pink Speedo) and off we went. I had no idea that babies were so buoyant. And like a fish to water, she was off – kicking and paddling and panting with eyes as wide as saucers. I can’t wait to go back.

Gummy Bear

Emily and Sammy at the pool