Many more firsts...

It is hard to believe that Kaia will be 6 months old in less than a week. She continues to grow and develop in leaps and bounds. She is sitting up by herself. We have hardwood floors so we usually baracade her with some pillows to cushion her fall when she leans just a little bit too far. Her fine motor skills have definitely improved. She is specifically picking up things and can transfer objects from one hand to another. I can attest to her VERY strong grip when she grabs my hair and pulls me to her. She is showing her personality more and more. Kaia lets you know when she likes something or doesn't. She leans towards the toy she wants and lets you know when she is frustrated and done with a toy too. She loves books. Specifically, flipping the pages. We are big fans of the board book since she can manipulate it.

Another recent first is that she is eating solid food as well as breastfeeding now. A little before 5 months old she started on rice cereal. We have moved through oat cereal, sweet potato and green beans. We are making her baby food so we have had a couple trips to Whole Foods (about 20-25 minutes away) for her organic produce. We have a number of foods already made and waiting in the freezer for her. They include carrots, butternut squash, apples and bananas. We can't get great produce being winter in RI so we also have some organic flash frozen stuff we are going to make into baby food like mangos, blueberries, peas and a number of others. She isn't a big fan of eating solids in the morning (I think she takes after Bryn), but as the day goes on she has no problem eating. She has her 6 month check up next week so we will hopefully get a little more direction then.

The biggest thing that has been ongoing is her sleep issues at night. I have had a number of nights totalling 3-4 hours of sleep. She had been going to sleep no problem, but then waking up through the night screaming and sometimes just deciding it is time to be awake. We are branching out into aromatherapy and some homeopathic remedies. Keep your fingers crossed for us. She slept through the night so early that I got spoiled. This has now been going on for about 2 months. She was fine traveling and for the first week in Newport. We have consulted our doula and cranial sacral practiioner in San Diego a number of times. They have been a great help and hopefully this phase will end soon.

Teething... that says a lot in itself. Kaia is chewing and drooling A LOT!!! She has been going through this for almost 2 months too. We can see and feel changes in her gums and are just waiting for a tooth to pop through. Funny enough, we are seeing and feeling most of this on the sides of her mouth and not in the front. She might suddenly have a full set of teeth the way she is going.

She is sure to wake soon so I better bring this to a close. Did I mention it is freezing up here??? Suddenly today a cold snap came through. When Bryn went to school today it was 7 degrees when he got in his car. Good thing we are all fully outfitted in winter gear.