Larkin Turned Six Months Old *sob*

 

I've procrastinated this post. I've drug my feet and looked the other way. I really have. I just cannot bring myself to even tell people that my baby girl is SIX MONTHS OLD. It physically pains me. 

It's not that I don't want my beautiful girl to grow and thrive and blossom and learn more and more... It's just that the 6-month mark is this PALPABLE switch from "tiny, new, fresh" little baby to "older, clever, curious, exploring" bigger baby. She is officially no longer NEW. And it's so good. Really it is. She's amazingly fun and gorgeous at this age. But.....

She's my last. And those tiny new moments in the beginning are so fleeting. These babies are just so eager to grow up and out and away. And she's my last. If you've read any of my other Larkin Milestone posts, you know this is a recurring ache for me... that my last one insists on aging up at the usual rate, instead of taking twice or three times as long like I keep asking her. I DO want her to grow up... but can't she take three years to turn one? Another three years to turn two? 

And yet here we are. Six months after my baby arrived, she has turned six months old on me. 

 

And I suppose I can't pretend it isn't happening... so here, for your enjoyment, are the stats about my girl Larkin at six months old:

1. Larkin is 25" long and weighs 14 lbs and 6 ounces. After being super teeny for her first 4 months, she is now solidly in the 17-18th percentile for her size. Good baby! 
2. She moved to mostly formula a few months back, but had maintained one nursing session a day until 4 days ago, and as of Sunday, March 5th, we are officially done nursing. It was inevitable, and I knew it was coming sooner than later, and truthfully, if you remember this post, you'll understand that though it's a sad ending for me, it's something to celebrate that we made it all the way to six months. Every single day of this last month that we nursed, I felt the weight of joy that we had one more, and then one more, and then one more time. It was good. And it was enough. I will miss that part of motherhood deeply, but we did the best we could, baby girl. 
3. Larkin is rolling and moving all over the place-- whether in her crib or on the floor, she loves to roll front to back and back to front and side to side and see where she ends up. She is getting very deft at all of it. No hands and knees yet, no attempts at forward (or backward) motion. 
4. She loves her bumbo and her exersaucer, and is officially done with the bouncer and swing, both of which she never adored. 
5. She is also officially done with the rock-n-play. She had her first full night in the crib last week sometime-- she has taken to it really well, in spite of the rough half-week back there where I had to basically wean her from her binkie to get her to sleep in a crib. We're past that hard stuff now, and she can get herself to sleep most of the time with minimal fussing and crying. Some days she needs a bit of crying-it-out time, but it's never that long, and there are several times she doesn't even fuss.  
6. So she's mostly done with her binkie for now. But I am absolutely fine with her taking it back up in a month or two when she can put it in herself and take it back out herself. Quinn was a late-binkyier, and I don't regret that at all. And I know Larkin loved hers, so it's cool if she wants it back eventually. 
7. She is also attaching to her pink fox lovey finally. SO cute! She's still one arm in a swaddle for sleep, which I plan to finish with next week sometime, but her free hand will grab for the foxy and keep it near her as she gets to sleep. 
8. Larkin loves crackly paper and textures, so it's so easy to keep her amused with wrappers and things. She'll join us at the dinner table in her bumbo and I will hand her a wrapper of something and she just plays with it, mouths it, and feels like she's part of the gang. 
9. She continues to love being worn, both in my ring sling and in the Tula carrier.Often when she's kind of done with being happy, I can put her in a sling and she'll give me a good additional 30 minutes of being chill before I have to put her down for a nap. She loves being near me and I love being near her. 
10. She is mostly still a 3-nap girl, but she's moving towards two, I think... her first two naps are getting longer. She will nap 1.5 hours in the morning and sometimes as long as 2.5 in the afternoon. 
11. Her bedtime is between 7-8, and she gets a bath most nights. Joe does the bath and lotion and jammies usually, while I work on the other kids' bedtime routines. She smells like pink baby lotion every night and I ADORE it. 
12. She had some bumps in the road this past week with her nighttime sleep.. but she's teething (no teeth yet) and has had a runny nose, so I think that all threw her off a lot. But she seems to be settling back into sleeping from 7-10, then getting a bottle at 10, then sleeping from 10-5 or even 10-6:30 am. Sometimes she'll wake around 2 and will take a bottle then, but I *think* she's moving out of that. Last night she woke and fussed for 2 minutes around 4, but then went back to sleep without any help and slept til 6:30. Now if I could just convince her to sleep til 7, I'd be fine with a 4:00am bottle, I think. 
13. She loves her siblings, and they love her. Noah loves to hold her, Quinn loves to make her laugh,  and Lucy loves to help out by picking up things she's dropped or by bringing me things I might need. 
14. And she LOOOVES her daddy. Her entire body lights up when he gets home from work. She physically wiggles like crazy as she breaks into a full smile. It's pretty amazing. And Joe loves to come home to her.♥
15. No teeth yet, no sitting up yet... but all my other kiddos didn't experience those things til 7 months, so we're in no rush. 
16. Her hair is still pretty sparse compared to when she was born, and is lighter than when she was born. But she's not at all bald-- she just has wispy, reddish brown, prone to waves, longer-strands-mixed-in-with-the-regular-length, bald-spot-in-back baby hair. 
17. And her eyes are really warming up. Gray, still? Probably? But greenish yellow too? Not true brown. NOT Lucy-blue at ALL. So maybe a gray-green-hazel. So crazy!  (scan these photos and decide for yourselves... What do YOU think?)
18. She loves being outside, loves being in a swing with me (or the hammock), loves watching Fiona. Loves holding things and of course *loves* having everything in her mouth-- especially hoodie strings and necklaces. She loves toys and loves being sung to. 
19. And lastly, she has had her first solid food! We started her with a grand feast of Baby Mum Mums (rice rusk teething "crackers" that melt in baby's mouth) and a dish of mashed avocado with formula and baby oats mixed in. She LOVES being part of the big kid crew in this regard, though she's still working on actually keeping food in her mouth. For now, we've not replaced her usual bottles with solids-- it's still more of a practice thing-- but it has been fun. And like I've done with all my other kids, I took photos of her first tasting experience (Lucy Noah Quinn). So I'll wrap this post up with photos of her having solid food and frankly being, if possible, CUTER THAN EVER. Don't say I didn't warn you.

 *

(Photos taken on Larkin's amazing bird quilt made by my friend Melanie Hess of Thoroughly Modern Minis, on Etsy. See her 1 month photos HERE, her 2 month photos HERE, her 3 month photos HERE, her 4 month photos HERE, and her 5 month photos HERE.)