Trixie: Six Months

Some spectacular things happened in the last month. Right after Trixie discovered her nasal cannula and was constantly finding ways to suck on it and the oxygen tubing, we went to the cardiologist and learned she doesn't need it anymore. It was a very happy day. At our previous appointment the technicians told us she would probably need to sedate Trixie for her next echocardiogram. As it turned out, she didn't need to be sedated and was nice and calm. After the echo the doctor said she didn't need oxygen anymore. Even better, he is anticipating that she will be able to go for years with minimal medical intervention. We have been very grateful this whole month for all the good news. And, no more cardiology visits until August!

Also, this month, Trixie didn't get sick! Actually, nobody got sick the whole month of February. It was delightful!

I have been putting Trixie in her exersaucer a little bit this month. She thinks it's fine. She doesn't sit up much on her own, and she isn't very good at using her hands. I'm hoping the exersaucer will help her a bit with those things.

Trixie is still a happy little baby. She sleeps a lot, which is great for me. In January she stopped sleeping through the night as well as she had been, but we seem to be back on track now. I can also now put her in her bed awake, and she drifts off to sleep on her own.

She is really chubby! (Check out the arm rolls in this picture and the ones above.) I haven't really given her much in the way of solid foods. I'm trying to do more of a baby-led weaning system this time. Which is really to say, I don't want to bother with baby foods and spoon-feeding. She isn't especially interested in foods. Even when she's sitting at the table with the family eating dinner, she doesn't seem to care that the rest of us are all chowing down. On a couple of occasions we've given her something big to suck and gnaw on, and she's seemed to like that well enough. But to be honest, she would have been just as happy if we'd handed her a toy to suck on. It hasn't clicked yet that everyone else is eating food. She's totally content to nurse.

Trixie is not an especially vocal baby. She makes noises and babbles periodically, but mostly she's just quiet until she's ready to sleep. She loves her hands, both to stare at and to suck on. If she can reach her feet, she'll try to pull on her socks and has succeeded in pulling them off a few times. If Eric is around, she will do whatever she can to stare at him because she just really thinks he's swell.

She figured out how to roll off her belly this month, and she seems moderately close to rolling off her back. When she's on her back she lifts up her head and her feet and does crunches.

Everyone in our family just adores her. It has been so nice this month to marvel at her unobstructed cheeks, to hold her near the gas stove and electric fireplace, and to pick her up and lug her around the whole house without worrying about tripping on her oxygen tubing. With both boys I've felt like six months was just this magical time where the boys became really interesting, and I'm already feeling the same way about Trixie.