Today Ruby is 6 months, 8 days old. This is what she is like:

• At her last doctor’s appointment (5 days ago), Ruby:
• weighed 14lbs, 4oz.
• was 24.25 inches long
• had a head circumference of 41cm.

…which means her weight and head are essentially the same, but she’s grown a bit longer the past month.

• Her hair is coming in a very light blond color, and is pretty fine. It’s now long enough to be ticklish if you brush your face against it. It’s not long enough to be mess-up-able. She still has the bald patch on the back of her head, although it’s shrinking.
• Her eyes are still a strange combination of blue/brown/grey that is looking greener, but that changes a lot depending on the light.
• Her skin is clear. She has a few rough patches (around her ankles, for example) from eczema. The back of her head still has red bumps. Every now and then, her face will exhibit a small self-inflicted scratch.
• She generally goes to bed around 8:30pm, and sleeps until around 6:30am. She occasionally wakes up at 4:30 for a snack, but these are becoming less frequent. After her 6:30am wake up, she may or may not go back to sleep until 9am or so. If she doesn’t, then she’ll have a morning nap around 9am.
• She naps two or three times per day, and each nap is about an hour long. Her nap times are generally about 3 hours apart. They’ll be further apart (and her naps will be shorter) if we’re out of the house, and they’ll be more frequent and longer if we’re at home.
• We bounce on a yoga/exercise ball to get her to go to sleep. This usually takes about ten minutes. Getting her to fall asleep without bouncing is tricky.
• She’s eating a lot of table food. The first table food she ate was an apple picked from our garden off a tree I planted three years ago. The list of foods she’s eaten is: apples, bananas, rice, avocado, amaranth, yams, plums. Coming soon are flax seeds and something green (peas?). She’s liked everything we fed her so far!
• She eats a half-cup (or more!) of table food at a time, and she eats table food once or twice per day. Feeding her is easy, and a lot more fun than having to rush through dinner to calm a fussy baby like we were doing last month.
• Now that she’s on table food, her poop is very putty-like and smelly. Not as smelly as when we first gave her formula, though, and much easier to clean up.
• She’s still breastfeeding, of course. Kate feeds her once (or twice) in the morning, and then once or twice in the evening. Three days each week, I’ll bring Ruby in to see Kate at work for a mid-morning snack. In addition to Kate’s milk, she’ll get one or two bottles (of formula or pumped milk) per day.
• Ruby is getting happier on her stomach, but is still not crawling. We think she’s got all the individual skills, but hasn’t figured out how to put them together. Instead of moving when she’s gets frustrated from being on her stomach, she’ll drop her face to the ground and flail her arms and legs about. She can push her entire torso off the ground, push up style, and I’ve seen her do a downward-dog-type faceplant a few times.
• When she’s on her back, she’ll do a lot of abdominal crunches: she’ll left up her head and legs and look around. It looks like she’s straining to sit upright, but isn’t strong enough for that.
• If we pull her to a sitting position, she’ll sit upright for a while — maybe ten or twenty seconds — and then fall backwards again.
• Half the time when we attempt to pull her up to a sitting position, she’ll dig in her heels and go straight to a stand.
• Yesterday she showed us two new interesting behaviors. The first one is where she’ll hold her hand out and twist the palm. It’s kind of like a beauty queen wave, or like she’s scooping something out of the air, or maybe she’s revving an invisible motorcycle throttle. She did it over and over and will watch her hand, fascinated, while doing it. At first we thought she was trying to make the sign for “milk”, but now I think she’s just doing it because it looks/feels neat.
• The other behavior is a sudden expansion of her vocabulary. Whereas previously she was stuck with “da”, yesterday she started saying “dit” and “doo”. She would string them all together in random combinations: “didadadidyoooo”.
• Ruby is still attached to her soother (and it is attached to her). She’s able to find it if it’s within reach and put it in her mouth, although it’s fifty/fifty whether she’ll put the right end in, and sometimes she forgets to let go and yanks it right back out again. She’s especially reliant on the soother to fall asleep and after meals.
• She’s been lots of fun to play with lately. She responds to us with giant smiles. We wrestle with her a lot.
• In the past few weeks she’s started to get cuddly when she gets tired. She’ll put her head down on our shoulders and snuggle in, although she seldom stays there for longer than a few seconds — she’ll pop her head back up and look around some more. Still, Kate and I both adore those few seconds of cuddling.
• She doesn’t have any favorite toys right now — she’ll play with various rattles, stuffed animals, and some stainless steel mise-en-place bowls. A few days ago we bought her an exersaucer thing (which we call “the throne”) and she loves to sit in it and play.
• In the past month we’ve taken Ruby on her first hike, to the Bumbershoot music festival (which included a rock band and some roller derby), to restaurants, and to various friend’s houses.
• Ruby still enjoys riding in her jogging stroller, although I tend to be more careful about the timing so that I don’t take her out when she’s in a fussy mood. She also likes to be carried in a sling, although sometimes she’ll fight against the tight space and want to stand or stretch out more.
• She’s still comfortable around strangers and smiles at them. She doesn’t mind being away from Mama and Papa. “Stranger anxiety” hasn’t set in yet.
• Still no teeth. She’s gone through a few intense spells of wanting to bite and chew on things. Her drooling has decreased considerably the past few weeks.