Things about Bridget I want to remember:

• You have the best fuzzy head. I love it, but everyone thinks you are boy if you don’t have a headband on! 
• You have made me such a softy. I thought I would never nurse a baby to sleep (that would just be too much work!) but now I love to do it for you to relax you to bed. My favorite moments are you falling asleep in my arms and feeling you relax. 
• You are really tough, so many times I think that Lucy has just hurt you and instead you laugh and giggle and smile at her so big. You adore your big sister. 
• You are growing so fast. You aren’t as big percentage wise anymore, I think you are 70% height, 80% weight (18 lbs), and 70% head size. You are wearing size 3 diapers and 9 month or 6-12 month clothing. 
• This month you started crawling and sitting up by yourself (right after you turned 6 months old). Then a few weeks later you learned how to transition from sitting to crawling. You love to re-position yourself up and down, up and down over and over. 
• When you don’t want to go down for nap, you will sit in your crib and cry – it is so sad to watch on the video monitor. Sometimes you will stare right at the camera. 
• You started eating baby food at 6 months and I am attempting to make it myself. I started with oatmeal cereal mixed with breast milk and you liked it a lot. When I switched to making it with formula (because I was running out of my frozen milk stash) you didn’t like it at first, but now you do. Then we tried bananas and sweet potatoes, you liked both after the initial shock of a new taste. You didn’t like apple sauce, but while we have been in Atlanta have tried some store bought baby food and you did like blueberry-applesauce, so I’ll have to make that when we get home. Random story: I tried to make you steamed carrots and I steamed them so long (to make them extra soft for you) that I destroyed my pot. The water ran out in the bottom and melted the nonstick coating! I will admit I was trying to give Lucy a bath at the same time and Kristen was visiting so I was a tad distracted. Lesson learned, don’t try to multi-task while making baby food! 
• You are 6 1/2 months now and already pulling up on toys! It took you longer than Lucy to roll over, but you seem right on track with her with everything else. 
• You have had an ear infection(s) since the beginning of October. You have been on 4 rounds on antibiotics and it didn’t improve until the 4th round, and even then didn’t clear up completely. We think that on the 3rd round the infection disappeared because your fever cleared up and you weren’t as crabby anymore. However when the doctor checked your ears at your 6 month appt. she said there is still trapped fluid in there. We are taking you to an ENT on Dec. to see if you are a candidate for tubes. 
• While you had the infection, you were crabby and didn’t do well for the nursery at church or BSF. It turns out it was because the antibiotics weren’t working for you and I thought they were! 🙁 Well now you are back to your super happy self and doing well in the nursery again. The only remaining symptom is that you grab your ear especially while your feeding before bed. 
• You love looking at books and grabbing the pages. Although it is hard to read to you and Lucy because you cover all the pictures and she can’t see. 
•  Your favorite toy is the blue owl. All we have to do is give it to you or hold it up in front of your face and you immediately giggle and laugh. 
• You wake up once in the middle of the night to eat and wake up between 6-7 am. We prefer 7 am! We did sleep train you by letting you cry it out. It took about 1 week, but then you got sick and I sometimes had to give you medicine in the middle of the night or feed you to make you feel better and fall back to sleep, so we have regressed in that department. 
• You recently moved to a two nap a day schedule. You wake up between 6:30-7:00, take a first nap at 10:00 and a 2nd nap around 2:30 or 3:00. She sleeps a total of 3 hours a day and goes to bed around 8:00 pm. 
• You play really well by yourself now that you can move around and you love practicing your  new moves so much. You now can stay awake for about 3 hours at a time. You only get crabby towards the end of that period and want to be held and/or played with. 
• You love to make a grabbing motion with your hand to feel new kinds of surfaces. You extend your whole hand and then make a fist over and over and over. It is pretty funny. 
• Nursing you plus taking care of Lucy apparently has taken a toll on my body. I have been sick twice in the last few weeks. First with a horrible stomach bug, now with laryngitis. Boo! You are worth it though. 
• I love holding you. You are so cuddly. This is such a cute fun age where you just sit there and play with toys – mostly sticking them in your mouth. You are such a joy Bridget! We love you so much!