Half a Year Old!!!

We cannot believe that Judith is already six months old. She has grown and changed so much already, it's simply amazing!

As promised, Judith had her doctor's appointment last week. Developmentally, she is right on target with all of her milestones: she picks things up with a full handed grab, can stay seated for about half a minute when you sit her up, and babbles away. She smiles a lot and seems to just be a really, really happy baby. In terms of size, her head is still in the 50th percentile, which is good. She is 24 3/4 inches long, which is 25th percentile. (Last visit she measured at 75th percentile, but all previous measurements were 25th percentile, so the doctor is working with the assumption that the last measurement was incorrect.) In terms of weight, she has slowed down in her growth a bit. She now weighs 13 pounds, 14 ounces, which is 10th percentile. The doctor isn't terribly concerned, she just doesn't want to see Judith go any lower on the chart.

One thing that the doctor think contributes to the weight is a lack of sleep. We thought Judith was doing well going to sleep between 10 p.m. and midnight and getting six to eight hours of sleep at a stretch. The doctor isn't satisfied with that however because babies need more rest than that if they can get it. (It seemed better than the other babies at Mommy & Me, but I guess they're sleep deprived, also!) Anyway, since Friday we have been putting Judith to sleep between 6:45 and 8:30 p.m., when she starts rubbing her eyes. Previously, she took a little nap at that point and then was up again for several hours. But now we're trying to get her to sleep twelve hours at night. Now, it's normal for that to be interrupted for one feeding. But with the exception of one night, this has actually been working. We had a sleep routine, but we've changed it to accommodate this. I'm also making sure that Judith is getting her dinner between 5:30 and 6:00, rather than eating dinner with us at about 8:00 - 8:30, which is what she was previously doing. Really, I'm amazed that Judith has taken to this so well. I just thought she was a night owl. It turns out we're the night owls and we were keeping her up. So now she's sleeping longer stretches at night, and getting two naps in her crib a day (most days - there are still some days when she will only nap if she is laying on Mommy), and she seems to be a happier baby even. And hopefully, this will help the whole process of growing because she has time to do it, and she's not burning all of her calories fussing at night.

But the overall health report is very good. Judith got three more booster shots and her flu shot. She'll need a second flu shot next month, and we'll get a quick weight and height check at the same time just to make sure that we're on target. The plus side of the small weight is that she still fits into her 3-6 month clothes. But we've pulled out a few of her new outfits for fun. And we figured it was about time she wore her Wilson's ice cream shop tee shirt. She hasn't tried ice cream yet, but she'll be happy when she does!

In terms of new food, we only introduced one new item this past week, which was a mix: cauliflower, carrot, tomato and cheese with basil. It didn't go over well the first time it was tried, but has been enjoyed since then. Tonight we'll make butternut squash for her for the first time and see how that goes. Overall though she's been an excellent eater! She doesn't eat more than one to two ounces at a feeding, but her solid feedings haven't replaced her nursing times yet - she's simply getting bonus food! On our next grocery shopping excursion we'll get more avocado because that's particularly good for babies with all the good fats and extra calories.

And we have a Judith first to report this week as well. On Tuesday Judith opened her first Christmas present at the Mommy & Me gift exchange. She is really enjoying ripping the newspaper as I try to read it to her. So I gave her a corner of the paper and she pulled. She was so excited when it came off. Then I gave her another corner and she pulled some more. It took close to five minutes to get the whole box unwrapped, and by that point she was loosing interest, but up until then she had great fun. We figure at that rate she may be able to actually open one or two of her gifts this year. Of course as I was wrapping gifts earlier this week she loved to take the tissue out of gift bags and rip that all up. So perhaps we'll make sure Santa is aware that she likes gift bags!

We finally have our cards and have the pictures of Judith to put in the cards. But the likelihood of me getting Christmas cards out before Christmas is about non-existent at this point. So we'll work on the principle of the Christmas Season and try to get cards out before Epiphany! We trust that folks will understand!

Today is Robert's last day of work until the new year. He has tomorrow off and his office is closed Christmas - New Year's, which is great. Of course on January 2, we both go back to work! Scary! I'll be working from home, but that doesn't make it any less nerve racking. Tomorrow I'll pick up my laptop and office supplies from the Chancery before heading over to the Bishop's Christmas Lunch at his home. Each year he has the Diocesan employees over for lunch on the last work day of the year. I missed it last year because we are traveling.

And we are so, so , so grateful that we decided not to travel this year! We will miss everyone terribly, BUT we would have been flying out yesterday or today and the weather in Denver is HORRIBLE! Last year we couldn't even find direct flights to select - everything routed from here through Denver and then on to Chicago. I can't imagine being stuck for multiple days at the airport with Judith - it would be horrible. So we are very, very glad that we are safe and comfortable at home, even though we truly miss everyone.

So tomorrow Robert gets six hours of private Judith time while I go to work, lunch, and music rehearsal. Saturday we'll do our grocery shopping and get any last minute items that we need and then go to Mass for the fourth Sunday of Advent. Sunday Robert gets another six to seven hours of personal Judith time as I go sing multiple Masses. Hey, Christmas Eve paychecks are a good thing! And then we'll go to Mass Monday morning before breakfast and opening of presents. I could have turned down the singing gigs and we could have gone to Mass Christmas Eve, but we weren't thrilled with the idea. Our options were a family Mass (an extravaganza that neither of us is interested in or wants to be at and would really be too loud for Judith), Midnight Mass at Midnight (and we don't want to interrupt her new sleep schedule for that and make her grouchy on Christmas) or Christmas morning. Christmas morning was really the best option. So we won't even be home from church until at least 1:00 p.m. Central time. Then we'll have breakfast and then open stockings and gifts. So if we don't call family until later in the day, you'll understand!

Anyway, that's plenty of babbling for now. Sorry that the post was late this week. We wish all who are traveling very safe travels. We pray for those who are a long way from their loved ones, particularly our troops serving in combat zones. And we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!