Six Month Update - A Bit Late

Ok. So I'm a little late on this posting. Baby Tuna had her six month birthday on the 19th and I'm just now posting her update. Can you believe that this kid has been on this planet for half a year already?!?! We spent the first four months in a haze as we waited for Z's surgery, but the time after that has just FLOWN by! The last month has been full of milestones, gallons of drool, and so many spoonfuls of baby food.

Weight: 15 pounds, 13 ounces
Height: 26 inches (The 49th percentile! Remember back when she was in the 15th?!! Finally catching up!)
Sizes: Z is kind of in between sizes these days. I'd say most of her clothes are 3-6 month (although she wore a 0-3 month sized top yesterday), but little-by-little those are getting packed away to make room for the 6 month stuff. It's so sad when one of our favorite rompers or onesies is too small or when we have to cram her little feet into the cutest pair of strawberry footie pjs. I guess it just makes room for cute fall items and Halloween outfits!!

Sleep: Well, I wish I could say that every night Z sleeps for 11 hours straight and that she takes two two-hour naps every day. I would love to tell you that I am able to put her in her crib drowsy but awake (what does that even mean?) and that after babbling for a few minutes she quietly falls asleep. I'd love to tell you all of that, but it would be total bullshit. All of the mommy blogs and sleep training websites would have you believe that this stuff actually happens. I think they are all lying. In truth, Z is an OK sleeper. She has been taking three naps a day, all exactly 30 minutes. You could set your watch by her. Once in a while, she will sleep for longer - like, 40 minutes. At night, she sleeps from about 8pm to 7am, which is awesome. Most nights we only hear from her once, when gas pain wakes her up. It takes about 20 minutes to get her calmed down and back to sleep. As for the "drowsy but awake" baloney, tried it and it can't be done. Not with this kid. After her bedtime book, we take five minutes and rock her to sleep. I'm sure we are ruining our kid's sleep habits forever, but it's what's working for us right now. It's not so bad, although I'd love for her to take two long naps each day so I could actually get some work done! Maybe this month!

Love that little squinchy face!

Diet: Just before Z hit the 5 month mark, we started her on oatmeal. She wore more than she ate for a long time, but really had a lot of fun with it. Once she started actually swallowing and closing her lips around her spoon, we gave her some sweet potatoes. Major hit! Since then, Baby Tuna has had bananas, peas, peaches, apples, carrots, green beans, and butternut squash. Her most favorite is a blend of peaches, apricots, and bananas that I think would be great over vanilla ice cream. I'm serious, the stuff's delish. We have yet to find something this kid won't eat. Once we've established a bit of a menu, I'm going to start making some of her food. I just didn't want to spend all that time peeling, chopping, steaming, and pureeing (is that even a word? I guess it is now!) only to find out that she hated it.

At her checkup, the doc gave us the go ahead to start her on puffs to get her practicing the pincer grab, and to start her using a sippy with water. All signs that she's no longer a newborn. She's moving into big kid territory. Guess we better start shopping for a highchair. So far she's been in her bebepod chair up on the dining room table, but it might be time for an upgrade!

Milestones: Holy milestones this month! Seems like there is a new one every day!
Baby Food: One of the biggest, of course, is starting with fruit and veggie purees. This has been so messy and so much fun. With the first bite of every meal, whether it is her very first taste of it or it is something she has eaten many times, she always makes a face like she can't figure out what it is and she's not sure if she wants more. It's hilarious. Then the lightbulb goes off and she remembers that she likes it. She opens her mouth and moves her tongue around like a baby bird. So cute. Recently, she started "chewing," which may be one of the funniest things yet! This kid has such a silly personality emerging!

Sleeping in Her Crib:  Right around her 5 month birthday, we decided it was time to move the babe into her own room.  She moves around so much in her sleep, and the swishing sound of the pack n' play was driving me nuts! It was a pretty smooth transition that started with nap times. And although we put her down on her back, she likes to roll onto her face to sleep. Totally terrifying. We love our video monitor, but even if we spent the entire night huddling around it in the dark while we watched her sleep, there is no way to tell if she was smothering herself. So, thanks to a brilliant suggestion from a friend (thanks Sarah B!), we purchased a Snuzza monitor, which clips onto her diaper and measures breathing movement, and alarms if the baby is too still for too long. The best $100 bucks we have ever spent. That little thing helps us relax enough to get a full night's sleep. Amen!

Getting Around: Z finally remembered how to roll from her belly to her back a few weeks ago, something she started doing at about ten weeks old and stopped doing shortly before her surgery. Now she can roll her self all over the place. She's also still moving backwards, and has even done an army crawl once or twice. Baby Tuna is really trying to work out the whole crawling with the belly off the floor-thing, but can't seem to get her butt in the air without smooshing her face into the rug. As cute as it is, it doesn't quite count as crawling.

"Oh nothin'. Just chillin' in the middle of the living room." 

Kisses: She will grab my face and come in quick with a big open mouth and a slobbery tongue. It might just be the best thing ever!

Shopping Carts & High Chairs: The little lady has begun to make life a wee bit easier on Momma and Daddy-o. A few weeks back, she starting sitting in those wooden high chairs in restaurants. And, thanks to the tiny carts at Hobby Lobby, she started riding in shopping carts like a big kid.

Why are the wooden highchairs so low? How is that helpful?    

Thank you, Hobby Lobby, for your Oompa Loompa-sized carts!

It wasn't until we got a shopping cart/highchair cover that she felt comfortable riding in the carts at Publix and Target. I think they were too open for her liking. But now, Zoey rolls in style!

Infantino Cart & Highchair Cover

Swimming: This kid has been a water baby from very early on. She loves splashing and kicking in her little whale tub, so as soon as the doctors gave the OK, we brought Baby Tuna into the pool. She loved it! The Hubs got her a little splash pool of her own and she has had such a blast playing around in it.

Teething: We are in the thick of it. The doctor said she could feel the start of something, and we are elbow-deep in drool around here. So, obviously everything ends up in Z's mouth...even fistfuls of my hair. 

So, last month I showed you a collection of outtakes from Z's photo shoot. This month was equally difficult, but more because of my lack of photography skills than anything else - half the shots were blurry. Mental note: always wear glasses when taking photos. Baby Tuna was being way too serious for the first few shots, so I busted out an old Tickle Me Elmo I had from my babysitting days. Her reaction was priceless!

Some more random pix from Baby Tuna's sixth month:

A New Saw, a Little Swimming, and Half a Cake

We had another busy, busy weekend in the Tuna house. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw my teaser about some projects that were started this weekend.

Project #1: A new, larger chalkboard. We'd love to paint a small wall completely in chalkboard paint (The one that our current chalkboard hangs on), but since we're renters, that's not gonna happen. Instead, we bought a big ol' piece of wood, some magnetic paint (so the little one can play when she's a bit older) and some chalkboard paint. This project hasn't officially begun yet, but I can't wait to get it done! So many ideas for new chalkboards!!!

Project #2: An Ikea hack that we've been planning for almost a year. Time to get that shit done! We're taking this boring little fella and making it a little fancier.

Three trips to Home Depot and a new miter saw later, and we still aren't finished. But we're close. A little more cutting, hammering, painting, and staining, and the cabinets will be good to go!

Making the jumpbox function as a workbench

We had foolishly fully intended to finish everything this weekend. Then we remembered that we have a six month old. The two of us are pretty handy, and I love these kinds of projects, but throw in Baby Tuna, and it is impossible to get anything accomplished!

The Hubs set up a pretty sweet play area in the garage. Later, the jumparoo made an appearance. 

The best part of the weekend (remember ours are Sundays and Mondays thanks to the Hubs's work schedule) happened when we decided to bag the projects on Monday and just play outside. Our backyard is super shady and breezy in the later part of afternoons, so it's a nice break from the 100 degree SoFlo temps and zillion percent humidity. We bought Z a little splash pool for her half birthday, so it was time to bust that puppy out and start to splashin'! 

After swimming, we celebrated Baby Tuna's first six months with half a strawberry lemonade cake for us, and pureed carrots for her.

Hard to believe she's six months old already. Although there are a few fussy days that sometimes drag on, most days fly by. It's crazy to think that in another six months, she will be a year old. Eeesh!

Weekend Recap

In our house weekends are Sundays and Mondays, thanks to the Hubs' work schedule. It was a total drag when I was teaching because it meant that we had to cram the whole weekend's worth of laziness, chores, errands, and fun into our Sunday. But now that we have Baby Tuna, and I'm working from home (and making my own schedule) we get to enjoy a "real" weekend.

While our weekends pre-pregnancy used to include fun stuff like kayaking trips and bike rides to the inlet, I'm sad to tell you that now most of our weekends are pretty lame.  Grocery shopping, a trip to the produce market, and catching up with the DVR. That's life when you have a new baby and its just too effing hot out to do anything fun. Even the pool is off limits until we get the A-OK from Z's doc that she can go in the water (and wear sunscreen, which will happen once she hits 6months).

Ahh...the good ol' days! 

This weekend wasn't quite as lame as usual. We hit the mall for a little tax-free shopping, and trekked down to Ikea to test out some sofas. We are desperate to make over our living room on the cheap a budget. The chair and coffee table are ratty hand-me-downs that needed to go five years ago, and our sofa is 13 years old, which is like 30 in sofa-years. Time for an upgrade. Inspired by one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, we decided on this sexy fella.

IKEA Karlstad Corner Sofa

Not sure when we will actually get it, but now we know what we want, which is huge, cuz we are THE most indecisive couple out there!

Helping daddy make a decision.

But, besides all of that, two major milestones happened... Z is now sitting up on her own!!! She still topples from time to time, and we are never more than a few inches away, but this is a biggie!! 

And in feeding news...Z had her first taste of veggies. Sweet Potatoes, to be exact. And she actually seemed to love them. Hoorah! These were store-bought from Plum Organics, and a wee bit bland in my opinion (yup, had to give them a taste), but Z enjoyed chowing down, even if they needed a little Jane's Krazy Salt. I can't wait to start making some of her food myself!

Month Four and Five Must-Haves

Well, with all that was going on right after Baby Tuna hit her four month birthday, I totally spaced on doing a must-haves posting. Oops! So here are our favorite things for the last two months. They pretty much overlapped anyway, so that really worked out. 

1. Abby Cadabby: The babe and I watch bits and pieces of Sesame Street almost every day. This kid has loved it from very early on. And thank goodness, cuz I love it too! I have to say, it's pretty obvious which character is her fave. Abby Cadabby makes her face light up. It's pretty cute. In fact, the Hubs was completely suckered into buying her an Abby doll a few weeks ago when she went completely bananas for it in Nordstrom. When she sees it sitting on the dining table, she giggles. Adorable!

Love for Abby Cadabby

2. Books: Maybe it's because I was once a teacher, maybe it's just because there are so many great read aloud books out there. We do a lot of reading. These are three of our favorites right now. Giraffes Can't Dance and Fancy Nancy are fun to read aloud, and Z loves the super detailed illustrations in both. If I Were an Owl is one of those books with different textures on each page. And since I love owls, I couldn't pass it up.
3. Original Sophie and Sophie Teether: Teething has begun in our house. Still waiting for the actual teeth to show up, but the drool is unbelievable and Z puts everything in her mouth. I make sure we have both of these nearby at all times. They are soft and cute, and the Original has a very gentle squeak (although ours sounds a little asthmatic from being run through the dishwasher once a week.). A bit pricey, but worth every single penny! If you still aren't convinced, check out this video all about Sophie.
4. Jellycat Soother: I have written many times about Z's Woobie and Woofie, and one of them shows up in the majority of pics we take of the babe. This is Woofie. So soft and snugly and just the right size for a little one. Plus, I can throw it in the washer when it starts to get funky. Bonus!
5. Infantino Jingle: This was a random purchase from Target, and I have to say it was one of the best impulse buys I've made in a long time. This guy's ears are nice and chewable, he hooks onto the car seat with a Velcro strap, and he makes the nicest jingle, hence the name. Plus: elephants and chevrons. What's not to love?
6. Graco Sound Machine: We purchased this little sound machine when Z was in the hospital to take away from the sounds of the PICU. It plays white noise and classical music, but the best part is that it's also an iPod speaker. There is also a blue night light that is perfect for middle of the night diaper changes.
7. F.P. Go Wild Jumperoo: A few weeks before Z's surgery, we thought the babe was ready for a little more activity. She's such a squirt, she had to stand on a dictionary (actually, she still does...it gives her the best jump). But she loves this thing! It's really helped her regain strength in her legs, and its been fun to watch her discover all the things it can do.