Dearest Adalynn,
I can’t believe you are 6 months old already! Where has the time gone little miss? Wasn’t it just last week that I was holding you in my arms for the first time? What a beautiful little girl you are and what joy you bring to our family! We sure do love you.
Daddy and I were a little worried about you for awhile because at about 4.5 months old you developed your first cold and started to have trouble sleeping through the night. I had read online that being sick you may want to eat more often – so when you started getting up in the middle of the night again (after sleeping through the night for several months straight). I didn’t think anything of it. However, apparently you got in the habit of eating at 2:00 or 3:00 am because you continued getting up at that time fir almost an entire month after you were over your cold. It was a hard month for Mommy.
We got it figured out eventually though after a few rough nights of you re-learning to “self sooth” and crying it out. It was hard for Mommy and Daddy not to go in and rescue you – but you are now sleeping through the night again like a champ and we are ALL much happier people because of it.
At 6 months you are starting to develop your own personality and we are finding that you are quite the vocalist! Some nights you sit and babble saying bla bla bla – over and over again and other nights you do what we like to call the velosorapter scream! (sp?) You seem to really like to hear yourself talk.
We have tried you on solid foods once a week or so since you were 4 months old but you absolutely HATE it when anything but breast milk goes into your mouth and the only thing we’ve been able to sort of keep in your mouth is a bit of banana. You hated rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, avocado, sweet potatoes, and kix. You are starting to get a little better now – but you are almost 7 months old now too!
You are absolutely adored by your brothers who love to smother you in kisses and do anything to get you to smile. They are all very protective of you – but love to show you off to any friends they have over. Especially Harry-Bob who we will here say “Come and look at my baby sister…isn’t she SO cute?”
You have your Daddy and Mommy wrapped around your little fingers too and we often fight over who gets to hold you in Sacrament meeting. I absolutely LOVE dressing you up each week in dresses and putting bows in your hair and so far you haven’t tried pulling out your bows, although I won’t be surprised if you do later.
When you go to sleep you still like us to wrap you up like a burrito, and then you like to start out with a binky (although you soon pop it out) and have your face nuzzled into a soft blanket. In the middle of the night you will often get your arms out of your blankets and wiggle free and when we find you in the morning you’ve pulled your soft blanket over your head because you love the feel of it on your face. It makes me nervous though to have blankets over your face like that though and I often get up in the middle of the night just to check and make sure you are okay and to re-wrap you. Branson still sleeps with his blankets over his face though and it seems to just be something all of you Egbert kids like to do.
You are becoming much less snuggly now but will still sit pretty still on our laps for the most part and just “observe” the world around you. You rarely cry unless you are hungry, tired, or your brothers are bugging you or if you are bored and done being in the same place. Your favorite things to do right now are to jump in your jumper (but only for about 20 minutes) play on your floor mat (this seems to be the favorite) and to play in your excer-saucer. Funny enough though you will RARELY if ever actually JUMP in your jumper but you do like to play with the toys and seem to prefer standing up to laying on your back or tummy to play.
You are smiling like crazy right now but STILL have yet to really giggle a lot. Daddy and I have gotten you to giggle a few times – but you seem to have to be in a certain mood because even though we try the same things – we don’t always get the same reaction. The best giggle we’ve gotten out of you was just last week when I held you in my arms and then pretended to drop you and then caught you a few feet down. You thought that was super fun and we got you giggling pretty good. Daddy tried too and we got a video of it. Its darling and I will always treasure it. Another day I got you to giggle when I tried eating your tummy and neck – but when I tried it another day you just grunted. We laugh because most of your reactions are just to smile big without making a single sound. But then when you use your voice to laugh it usually just comes out as a great big burst of joy! Its really funny.
We love too how excited you get when you see us or we smile at you. Your whole body seems to smile and it shakes when you smile back at us. Its adorable. You are now starting to really like your bumbo and especially when we put you up in it during dinner time on the table so that you can be with all of us (instead of down on the floor in your bouncer). You are one social girl and if there is a party going on you REFUSE to go to sleep. It seems like every Sunday when we take you up to Grandma and Grandpa’s you have a hard time sleeping because you want to see what is going on. We usually have to hold you in our arms with you facing outwards to get you to sleep so that you can see what is going on until the very last moment when you finally “drift” into dreamland.
At your six month appointment you were growing well. Your head is now in the 76th percentile (big brains right?) and then you were in the 46th percentile for weight and the 51st percentile for height. Just really average – but that is good for a girl and I’m hoping you will be a bit shorter than your Mommy so that you won’t have most of the boys shorter than you during your dating years like I did! 🙂
As far as rolling over – you have yet to do it on a consistent basis but you love to twist yourself around into all sorts of “almost turnovers” that are quite comical to watch. You are super grabby and good with your hands though and can really focus on getting your hands where you want them to go. You are putting most everything in your mouth too just to “try out the taste” but often won’t put it in your mouth again if it wasn’t agreeable to you.
Right now you are eating 4 times a day at 8 am, noon, 4 pm, and then around 8:30 or 9:00. You’ve become super picky about the temperature of your bottles though and if they are not just right – you spit out the milk and refuse to eat. But when you do eat you take down about 8-9 ounces at a time. We just barely weaned you down from 5 bottles a day to 4 bottles – when we were consistently having to wake you up for your last feeding of the night. You actually are sleeping much better now that we’ve done so to and usually will sleep from around 9 pm to 7:30 or 8:00 am. You are such a dream baby in that way. Thank you, Thank you!
Anyway, little miss – we sure do love having you in our family and the wonderful way that you brighten all our days! You are so special to us and we all love you very much! What a beautiful and special little girl you are to us!
Lots of Love,
Mommy