6 Months

Last week Violet passed the 6-month mark. She has been here with us for a whole half of a year now and we are closer to her first birthday than to her birth.

She doesn't sit up on her own or crawl yet, but she is an expert at rolling, scooting, and otherwise propelling herself around. It amuses me to notice how far across the room she can get without really crawling at all. She seems like she might have the makings of a really active type of baby; she is so busy and mobile and enterprising in making her way across the floor.

She is full of smiles these days, although I seem much more likely to catch her in photographs either in a serious baby mood or making a comical face involving her tongue. Some of my very favorite smiles come after she wakes up. She almost always naps in her crib these days, and after she rouses I hear her quietly protest and squawk a bit. When I go in there and reach down to lift her up out of her crib, her face breaks open with a huge, toothless grin, a smile full of joy at being loved and held and with us again.

She has grown really interested in her hands and how she can use them, eager to grab and play with spoons, toys, placemats, necklaces, hair, and anything else she can get her chubby fingers entwined in. Sometimes when I pick her up, she will reach her little plump arms up around my neck and hold on a bit, giving me a delicious embrace of baby fat and bright, dark eyes.