Hailey turns 6 Months Old!

Dear Hailey, 

Yesterday was your half birthday. I can't believe 6 months have flown by so quickly. And to think you will soon be crawling! Crazy. 

We went to the doctor today for your check up and everything looks pretty good. You took both shots with just a bit of whimpering and you sucked the rotovirus vaccine down like it was candy and you wanted more of it as the nurse took the vial away. 

You are measuring on the light side, 13 pounds and 4 ounces. The doctor says that while you are on the low end of the growth chart, he's not too concerned because starting solids should help you gain a bit more weight. He'll check back with us in a month in a half to see how you are growing. If you have dropped one more line on the growth chart, he will start to get concerned, but hopefully you stay or even jump back to where you were. 

Length-wise, you are in the 74th percentile, so like Nathan, you are a banana baby. 

 You enjoy eating food from the feeder. You sometimes like yogurt, avocado, and today I gave you mango mixed with egg yolk, which you really liked.

 You are definitely noticing Nathan and Hannah more. You are always looking to see where they are, what they are doing, and when they are close, you like to grab their faces, or hair.

See that little hand, sneaking up? 

They both adore you and always want to take pictures with you. Usually when they act crazy, that makes you laugh. 

Other things that make you laugh are silly faces, pictures of dogs in books, and Teddy. 

 You are now wearing size 2 diapers and 6-9 month clothing. You love standing and walking with assistance. You get this excited look on your face as if you were saying, "look at me! I did it!"It's adorable.

You are still sleeping for 3 hour stretches, although you did tease me with a 5 hour stretch 3 nights ago. You typically will fall asleep at around 8, wake up at 11:00 for a feed, another one at 2:30, and another one right before 6. Sometimes you wake up at 7, sometimes you will sleep until just before 8. And then you will go down for a nap after being awake for about 2 hours. Sometimes you take 30 minute naps, other times you take up to 2 hour naps. I find that if I feed you right before you sleep, you will take the longer one.

Things are slowly starting to fall into more of a predictable schedule, which makes life significantly less stressful. This is where parenting a newborn starts to become fun (in my opinion).

Dear Nathan and Hannah,
You two sure keep me on my toes all day. After realizing how limited of a time I'm going to have with Nathan, I've been trying to carve more time out of my day to spend with you two. Instead of getting stuff done while Hailey is asleep, I will make it a point to spend some time with each of you. With Hannah, it's usually playing dolls, and with Nathan, it's usually playing board games.

Last Friday we had our monthly family gathering at church. This month's service project involved helping the Easter bunny stuff eggs for an egg hunt that is being put on by a smaller church down the road. The eggs were tough to snap, so you guys each helped stuff 3-4 eggs and then ran off to play. Together, the parents stuffed about 600 eggs. I'd say it was a success.

 The next morning, we attended an Easter event put on by the Oak Hill fire department. It was small, but lots of fun.

 You guys even got to ride inside a helicopter. I wish I could ride in a helicopter...

 The egg hunt was pretty exciting. It was really fun watching all the kids race down this large hill to pick up eggs along the way. It kind of reminded me of a scene from the Hunger Games, without any lives being taken.

 In the end, you all got a pretty good harvest of eggs. You guys did pretty good with not eating any of the candy. Remember, we gave up eating candy until Easter. You both asked, thinking there was a fair chance of it being Easter, but after I shared with you the news that Easter was in a week, you both put the candy back into your basket and kept on truckin'. I seriously thought that I was going to have to put up a fight and even take out the "think about Jesus" card (which I have used several times these past few weeks). But I didn't.

 Daddy left to go play hockey half way through the event, so we did the rest of the activities without him. We stood in line to get your faces painted.

 And you guys even participated in an obstacle course

 which involves saving a kid (which Hannah carried without a sense of urgency and Nathan flung the kid about 10 feet towards the end. I now know who I need to ask to save me in case of an emergency: Hailey)

 and putting out a "fire" with a real fire hose.

 In the end you all got a firefighter helmet. As we walked away, Nathan, I heard you exclaim, that was so cool! I think I want to be a firefighter.

 For craft time this week, we dyed Easter eggs. It ended up be a quick experiment on color mixing because Hannah has forgotten what primary colors make when you mix 2 colors together.

The Oak pollen has quarantined us indoors for the most part. You two seem to be fine with allergy medicine, but with breastfeeding, I'm afraid to take anything beyond a nasal steroid. Under extreme circumstances, I will take a 4-hour pill, but I've been trying to survive without.

Well, this Sunday is Easter, so we will be having more fun then. Until next week,
Love,
Mommy.