6 month update

My baby turned half a year old at 10:56pm. How did this happen? Wasn't it a minute ago I was holding a newborn and crying that she was safe in my arms? A day ago that I was feeling her kick? A week ago that I saw those two lines? Now she is 6 months old, halfway to a year, and she's becoming her own person with her own personality and I'm trying to keep the world from turning so I can have just one more second of her curled up sleeping in my arms before she decides she's too big for that anymore.

Weight: IDK, we visit the Dr next week when we get home.
Height: ^
Head: ^

Milestones: Army crawling at the speed of light or close to it without being hindered by silly things like pillows or walls, pushes self to a sitting position from belly, cut first tooth, gives "kisses" (aka, she opens her mouth wide and face plants onto my face) when I ask for kissies and pucker my lips. She's also pretty steady at sitting up and can stay that way for quite awhile. She still loves to stand and has gotten more persistent with trying to reach things to pull herself up on and can do it very easily if you give her your fingers to hold onto. Grasping objects and pulling them towards her are old hat. She's doing a lot of baby babble but no 'dada' or 'mama' yet (when she is hysterical I sometimes think I hear 'mama' but I refuse to believe that's real), though she says 'I-ya' a lot which might be her name? IDK, she knows her name since she turns when she hears it and we say it all the freaking time so it could be. She's very independent though and doesn't want to be held and cuddled (SAD FACE INSERTED HERE) but just wants to crawl and explore on her own. I'm proud and heartbroken. I'm sure those two feelings will just increase with time.

On an island in the sun we'll be playin' and havin' fun

It was about this time last year when I first started hearing the sentence I would end up hearing thousands of times over the course of the year from my husband: "I can't wait to take the baby to Washington Island." It altered of course as the year went on. "I can't wait to take our daughter..." "I can't wait to take Lila..." but the message was still the same. Washington Island Wisconsin is my Jason's favorite place in the entire world, so his excitement at the prospect of sharing his favorite place with his new favorite person has been unquenchable and has only grown exponentially as the year continued. He has been going since he was a baby, so the idea of bringing his baby here has been something that he has really been looking forward to. As summer came closer the sentence became much more frequent. Eventually, that week before we left, everything he said to Lila somehow was related to Washington Island, Boats, Fishing or Ice Cream.

Eventually June 30th came and we packed up our car and cooler and trailer hitch (to haul a bag filled with Lila's stroller, walker, travel high chair and play mat) and way too many suit cases and started the long... long... long car trip from Orlando to North Eastern Wisconsin. Now, Lila is an excellent road tripper. But even she has her limits, especially since she's a super mobile and active infant. I still maintain that for being 6 months old she did remarkably well and we made it all the way to Murfreesboro Tennessee (severe heat wave central) in 9 hours. Not bad!! She was so happy to be free she rolled and crawled all over the bed for a few hours before she finally relented and went to sleep. The next day she had less patience and we had to make a couple extended stops to let her play (fortunately it helped us miss the insane storms over Chicago by minutes), and Jason had to whistle every song he knew the last 20 minutes of our car ride to keep her distracted, but we made it to Milwaukee and Aunt Amanda!! She got a lot of kisses and I got Macaroni and Cheese Pizza from Ian's. I know, it sounds crazy. But sometimes when 2 perfect foods meet it is a match made in heaven and this is one of those cases. Insert a fond sigh here.

The next morning Jason was up at like, 5 am and if it wasn't sweltering I might have wondered if it was Christmas. We left around 7 and picked up some groceries and had lunch at Culver's (fried cheese curds! cement mixers!) and then, at long last, took "a magical ride to a magical place" on the Washington Island Ferry. Jason put Lila in his carrier so he could wonder about and point out everything and anything to her. Lila, of course, thought this was the end of the carseat. NOT SO. And she was quite displeased when we strapped her back in to get off the ferry and drive the 5 minutes to Nana and Grandpa's house. But once there she was FREE and very very pleasant to everyone because of that fact. She played. She smiled. She showed everyone that after 5 and a half months she had finally figured out she had a tongue. Daddy took her down to the water and had A Moment. And that night she slept excellently.

Today (it's still the 3rd, I'm on CST, HA) was action packed for her. She played a lot while Daddy, Grandpa and Uncle Red went fishing (and caught a bunch of bass!!) and when they came back we decided to take Lila out for her first boat ride!! So we put on her new cloth swim diaper (the only cloth diaper I brought, lol), put some sunscreen on her (finally), and fitted her with her lifejacket and UV hat and off we went! At first she was a little unsure but once she was convinced that Daddy enjoyed it then she enjoyed it too!! We pulled into Pedersens Bay where the water was shallow (and chilly!) and my little water baby floated and stood and sat and stared at all the little minnows who gathered around to investigate us. Then had a bottle in the boat and fell straight into a nap while Daddy and Grandpa caught MORE fish! Very productive trip.

Once home she got a quick shower to get rid of the sunscreen and lake water and dressed up to go into town. Well, town after some FaceTime with Besta. Burger Night is every Tuesday at one of the restaurants up here, so we decided to try our travel high chair out at it since she sits up so well now and it worked like a charm! By the end of burgers Lila was channeling her time change and was ready to break down so we went home to change her, give her one last walk down to see the water, and she was asleep before her head hit the sheets.

What an active first vacation day for her! But she is doing amazing and adjusts so well to all the changes in her routine, so I couldn't be any more proud of her. I hope she does just as well for her first fireworks tomorrow!!