the update

So I promised I'd update. So here goes...

This picture of Bella playing in Ashley's cot was taken yesterday morning. Ashley turned six months old (20Apr-20 Oct). And I managed to completely miss her appointment for her six month needles. Oops. I thought it was only Tuesday and it wasn't until I tried to make a doctor appointment for Thursday ("I have 3:20pm tomorrow?" "no, Thursday" "yes, tomorrow. Thursday") that I realised it was actually Wednesday and I had missed the immunisation appointment. D'oh! Aside from six month needles, the six month mark is significant in other ways too... she's technically too big for the bassinette in our room and the bassinette on the Bugaboo, we can feed her (tried her on mashed pumpkin yesterday evening and she did really well), turn her carseat and I made it to the 6mth mark with breastfeeding which was my personal goal. Now I'm willing to 'let' myself wean her but although part of me is ready to finish breastfeeding, part of me really doesn't want to. Conflicted!!!!!

Six months (well, more like five months) has also marked a change in her behaviour. She can entertain herself, settle herself to sleep and is just generally a lot less clingy and grizzly and time-consuming. I used to put off going to the toilet for HOURS because I just couldn't leave her. I'd finally get to the dinner dishes around 3pm the next day. She still woke every couple of hours overnight and fed every hour or so during the day. She slept in my bed 90% of the time. Now... well, she's still not much of a napper, yesterday she had 20mins all day, the day before she had 1x2.5hr nap, it varies. But she goes to sleep in her own cot in her own room, often awake and puts herself to sleep and if she startles, I can usually pat her back down. When she wakes she plays rather than screaming for me. I'm so glad I had confidence in her and myself and didn't resort to some of those baby-torture techniques because there were definitely times when I wondered whether I was spoiling her and whether she would be 14 and still sleeping in our bed!!

Ashley is rolling around with ease now. I'll put her down in front of her mirrored BIR while I nip to the bathroom and come back to find her behind the door or under the window! She loves to say "dah-dah-dah-dah-*pause for breath*- dah-dah-dah..." No teeth yet and no crawling. Full of broad smiles and giggles. It amazes me that babies develop a sense of humour before they develop the ability to speak or move around or feed themselves. Odd.

On to Bella.

Half an hour after this pic was taken yesterday she asked for bacon. I said we didn't have any bacon and she started crying. Strange little child, haha!

Bella started soccer on the weekend with Get Active. She seemed to enjoy it but was a bit distracted during the session (at one point she told Matt she wanted to play dogs now, haha). It runs for 6wks and then they run another sport. The sports are soccer, afl, cricket, netball, basketball and tennis but out of those I think only tennis or cricket would interest her- she's a cricket nut!!

A few weeks ago Bella surprised us all by being a bit LOT naughty. I noticed a bit of scribble on the wall between two couches and when i pulled one back I was horrified to discover a secret mural in 4 different colours spanning the wall. Clearly she'd been crawling behind the couches for a while and adding to it and had gotten a bit carried away by drawing where we could see it. Even when Bella was a baby we could leave her with crayons and know she would only draw on blank paper, it was a rule she always stuck to so well. She couldn't explain why she did it, and she cried a lot, I think the compulsion to do it kind of took her by surprise too. This is just a little of it, the part we ended up seeing (the little bit to the right of the window). There's blue and grey and red too, out of shot. The paintwork was only two months old. Kids- gotta love 'em!