Six

On Saturday, Lydia will be six months old. I really can't believe it. For some reason, I feel like this milestone makes us legitimate parents--like we've been pretending and hoping for the best until now.

According to the books, here is what six months means:

--Lydia can wear sunscreen.

--She can sleep with a "lovie"--a small blanket or stuffed animal.

--She can eat solids.

--We can begin sleep training.

--Lydia can drink juice.


According to Life with Lydia:

--We started solids almost two months ago.

--We started sleep training almost two months ago.

--She started sleeping with a little blanket (about 18 inches square) a couple weeks ago when we de-pacifiered her for nighttime sleep. (She was starting to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep without the pacifier.)

This leaves sunscreen and juice. Strange the things we ended up doing "by the book."

There are so many things for us that make six months meaningful. We are halfway to the year mark, which means we have six more months to enjoy Lydia as an infant before she moves into the world of toddlers. She becomes more amazing every day, and both Robin and I are continuously finding ourselves more infatuated with her. She's incredible.

For me, six months is significant because when I was pregnant, I told myself that I would not allow myself to stop breastfeeding without feeling guilty at six months. Now at six months, things are going really well, and I don't have much desire to stop at the moment. Certain things about breast feeding annoy me--lugging a pump around, having to schedule meetings at work around pumping time, bras that open like barnyard doors, that sort of thing--but as of now, the positives outweigh the negatives. I know what my hope is as far as the amount of time I want to go with nursing, and I have shared it with my nursing confidants, but I have officially reached my initial goal, and I am taking a moment to congratulate myself for that.

I feel like Robin and I have done pretty well during the past six months in our adventures in child-rearing, so as we approach this big milestone, I'm giving all three of us pats on the back.