Anne Turns Six Months Old

Today Anne turned 6 months old.  In celebration, she was given pureed pear for dinner (which she devoured with relish, in sharp contrast to the veggies she disdained at lunch time) and a pea-sized portion of icing from the chocolate cake I somehow managed to make today.

Pea-sized chocolate icing still managed to make a mess.

And here is fun video of Anne laughing this afternoon:

Proof of Tooth

Open wide!

Close-up of the tooth.

And a cute smiley photo just because.

Jeff Returns To Work

This was Jeff's first week back at work and my first week at home alone with the baby.  Overall it went really well.  The days were really busy and the nights were terrible (Anne seems to have a lot of gas caused by the solids she is now eating) but nobody had a breakdown and the house is still in one piece.  I didn't manage to get any cleaning done and very little cooking, but I did manage to get Anne to sleep longer than her standard half hour nap.  She is now capable of napping for one full hour at a time.  (She seems only to wake on half hour marks for some reason.)

Anne eats a little bit of solids every day, which I make from scratch (they are extremely easy purees).  We are trying to get her used to various vegetables and a few fruits.  Unfortunately she seems mostly to like the fruits and not the vegetables.  I am going to try some sweet potato and some sweet peas this weekend to see if those will be passable.  

The only new developmental milestone is that Anne now sleeps with her bum in the air.  Alas, I do not have a photo of this since Anne would surely hear the camera and wake up.  Rest assured it is disgustingly cute.

Anne eating a trio of root vegetables.  This is a good day since there is very little food in her hair, ears, and nostrils.

Anne this morning.

Anne's First Solids!

Anne ate her first official solids on Monday.  She is 5 1/2 months old.  They recommend you wait until 6 months these days, but Anne seems to be hungry ALL the time and still waking up at least twice a night for feedings.  I say "official solids" because I may have been sneaking her the tiniest of tastes of solids for a few weeks now... a tiny dab of frozen yogurt here, a morsel of lasagna sauce there, a lick of my lollipop.  Boy was the lollipop a mistake; Anne latched on to that thing like a suction cup and I had to break the seal to get it out of her mouth and pry her little fingers off the stick one by one).

Anyway, her first official solid was pureed, cooked carrots.  This is one of the suggested first tastes in my new recipe book 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel (the recipes are not actually all purees despite the title).  Anne didn't get very much of the pureed carrots, maybe a tablespoon in total, but she seemed to eat most of it and I was impressed at how much stayed in her mouth.  The facial expressions were to die for.  I hope they are visible in the videos below.

Yesterday we fed her pureed carrots again with similar facial expressions.  Tonight we didn't have any carrots so we fed her mashed bananas.  She seemed to like the bananas way better.  She kept attacking the spoon and barely made any weird faces.

Anne's first taste of solids:

More of Anne's facial expressions:

Also here are some photos from the land this weekend:

Anne and Aunt Greta

A nice shot of Anne's jowls.

Anne loves cups.

And here are some other random photos:

Anne with her favourite toy from Aunty Laura.  Aunt Laura believes in getting them addicted early.

Anne when we first discovered her secret love for cups of all shapes and sizes.

And a couple of bonus videos just because:

Anne Cuts Her First Tooth!

We were in the car and I was letting Anne gnaw on my knuckle when I realized there was something sharp in there!  Anne has cut her first tooth at 5 1/2 months old.  :)

Coming soon: a post with videos of Anne's first tastes of solid food.

Squealing Like a Little Girl

On Monday Anne started squealing and cooing like crazy and she hasn't stopped since.  She is a lean mean talking machine!  I have been trying to catch her on video but I haven't gotten a good one yet.  It seems that every time we bring out the camera she either gets grumpy or is too fascinated by the camera to continue squealing.  Here are my two best attempts:

Anne cleans the bathroom with Dad on Wednesday:

Anne plays with a toy in her car seat on Thursday:

Anne has perfected her rolling from back to tummy.  She wastes no time hanging out on her back and when you put her down she is on her tummy before you even remove your hands.  She is much more tolerant of being on her tummy now and can sometimes hang out there for 10 or 15 minutes before becoming upset.  Lately she has started to wriggle and rotate and even get her knees up under her a little bit, but we have yet to see her lift her tummy off of the ground.  She finally figured out how to roll from her tummy onto her side (and theoretically back onto her back) but she doesn't seem to ever want to lie on her back any more.

Anne is becoming a lot more aware of her surroundings.  She manipulates her toys and soothers with a lot more skill and she often looks for toys she has dropped and picks them up on her own if she can reach them.  She has discovered that we keep the diapers in a container just above her head on the change table.  She likes to methodically remove them and redecorate the room with them.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a wedding and left Anne with Gus's au pair, Radka.  Radka was great, but unfortunately Anne decided to start playing strange.  She also played strange with Grandpa G a couple of days later.  Fortunately she got used to Grandpa in a couple of days and we haven't seen any more cases of strange so far.

Last week Aunt Laura visited from Alberta.  It was a great week hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa G's all week and doing pretty much nothing.  :)  Aunt Laura was fabulous with Anne and we got some great photos of them together.

Anne and Aunt Laura

Anne and Aunt Laura laughing

Anne in the kiddy pool.  Check out those rolls!

Anne in the kiddy pool.

Attempting to get a photo of Aunt Laura with both babies.  This is more difficult than it sounds.

Finally, a photo with Aunt Laura and both babies!

Anne playing with her exersaucer.  She seems to like it, except she eventually gets frustrated that she can't get the toys into her mouth.