Claire is Six Months old!

She is growing up so fast! She makes that kissie face from the video all the time now, and is really crawling all over the place! Today she was sitting next to me on the couch and she turned and pulled herself up on the arm rest and started climbing over the edge of the couch to grab the remote control on the end table! Yikes! We totally need some type of baby prison now for when I need to go to the bathroom without her electrocuting herself or splitting her head open on the fireplace! 

5 New Things About Claire

1. Her favorite musical artist is Beck. No lie. Anything else that's on in the car she ignores. But when Beck plays she sings along. And today she was screaming on the way home from Target, then I thought to change the CD to her new fav, and she instantly stopped crying, and after a few seconds started singing along. Must be his smooth voice and funky rhythm!

2. She can army crawl like nobody's business, and can proper-crawl for one or two "steps"

3. She loves peek-a-boo and cracks up constantly when you play with her

4. She farts like her dad--seriously!

5. She cries when I walk out of the room sometimes. Gonna have to break her of that one!

Claire's Kissie Noise

She just learned this today, it's featured really well right at the end:

Snow and Sickness

This weekend we went to Big Bear and Claire got to experience her first snow. I know some great photos got taken of her all bundled up, but I do not have them. She had a great time, until Saturday night. She would not go to sleep and cried and cried. I thought she was just having one of those nights, until the morning when her whole face was crusted with snot and she was coughing, sneezing, and throwing up! Poor baby! I think the cold dry mountain air just made it worse. At about 3 am I took her into the bathroom, turned the shower on super hot, and sat with her in the steam for about 10 minutes. That seemed to help a little. Now that we're home and it's not so dry she is a bit better. She is sleeping more, but when she woke up at 1 this morning I think she had a fever. She went back to sleep right after I nursed her though, so I didn't try and give her tylenol. She's trying to nap right now, but can't really breathe through her nose, which is making it hard for her to suck her thumb. I just wish I could make her feel better!

And now it's time for something happy

What a happy little girl

Don't mind me, I'm just posing

First Food: Avocado

It doubles as finger paint

Struggling

I'm not sure if it's just my bad attitude, or some unfortunate timing, or both, but things have been less than serene around here lately. The adjustment to me being gone so long at night has been hard for Claire... and even harder for me. I'm finding myself hating every minute of time I spend at school, working on school, or thinking about school! And on top of it all I got sick over the weekend. The combination of being sick and being stressed has zapped my milk supply which has lead to a whole struggle between my body and Claire's hunger. I'm doing everything I can to treat the problem, but it has really unraveled any coping I was attempting. 

I feel like I'm failing at being a good student and a good mother all at the same time. Of course I know I'm not actually failing, and have been told frequently by my amazing husband and supportive friends, but truth matters very little sometimes. I just want to quit. I don't care that I'm being emotional and short-sighted. I just feel like the past 5 months have been so joyful, and the past 2 weeks have been filled with grief, all for a career I wanted before I became a mother and now find meaningless in the face of the sacrifice it's going to take to achieve. 

Ok. Tantrum over. I'm in that place right now where all I want is to feel like God is leading me to the decision I want to make, so I can have my way and feel obedient in the process. (it's a 2fer!) I'm so busy crying out that I can't hear the answer. But truthfully, ever since Claire was born I have been rethinking my life plans. Maybe I'm supposed to stay at home and have lots of babies--it seems to be something I'm quite good at.

To eat, or not to eat... and a few other fun stats

Claire is babbling! And what does she say the most: /ma ma ma/! She also has a /b/ and a /g/ in her inventory. We're working on /da da da/. She went to the Dr. on Friday (I'll post later about why we're now looking for a new pediatrician... such frustration!) and weighs 14.4 pounds and is doing well. She sits up a lot more steadily now and is practically crawling. She can scoot backwards really well, and is starting to get up on all fours and rock back and forth.  She also really loves to suck on her toes. Kevin said that the other day while he was changing her diaper, she had all ten toes in her mouth at once and was happy as a clam! 

My current dilemma is when to start solids. The pediatrician was telling me that as of six months breast milk alone does not provide enough nutrients. But because I am now less confident in her, I'm looking around for other opinions on the matter. She still has another month till she hits the magical 6, but if she doesn't seem ready then, I'm going to hold off. Part of me is afraid I'm just thinking she might not be ready cause I'm in denial about how grown up she is getting! Although, it sort of doesn't make sense that biologically we would need food before we can really eat it on our own without crazy special puree preparation. I'm worried that we have a common practice of feeding babies baby food because we have a booming baby food industry. Opinions like this change every generation. When I was a baby my mom breastfed me exclusively till I was a year old, and 10 years later they recommended starting rice cereal at 6 weeks (I used to babysit a little boy who got a rice cereal bottle twice a day starting at 1 month). Simply put, just because they recommend something, doesn't mean they actually know anything! haha! So, I haven't decided yet, these are just my current musings on the subject.