Emery Tracker: Month Six

The Story
My sweet angel is half of a year old.  How?  HOW is that possible?  Some days it feels like a million years ago that I was doing hours worth of laps around our kitchen island while secretly drinking a beer at 2 am (shhhhhh).  Other days it feels like it was 5 minutes ago.  Regardless of which type of day it is- one thing is always true.  We are so, so very proud of Miss Emery.  That and we are beyond enamored with her.  Does obsessed sound crazy?  If so then that's the right word.

This month has been a pure* joy.  I guess we will start with an update on previous months' challenges and then get into the really fun stuff.  Baby guuuurl has been so, so, so much better in the car.  It's fairly rare that she throws a real fit in the car unless she's already tired.  Then look out.  She's another month older and those lungs are another month stronger.  She can hit notes I believed impossible even for grown humans.  I no longer consider how ridiculous it looks to drive around Houston in the summer with earmuffs.  So thank you muchly for that, sweet Princess!

OMG.  Dad- there's a fan behind your head!

Ahhhh, sleep.  That's another challenge that seems to plague baby E.  The beginning of this month continued exactly the same as month 5.  She would fight sleep for hours.  When we would start to rock her, no matter how calm she was prior, it's like she would flip a switch.  All of a sudden she thought she was starring in Fight Club or something.  She would start thrashing around, screaming, slobbering alllll over our clothes.  It was not delightful.  Not delightful at all.  So bad that Ryan & I would basically arm wrestle to see who's turn it was to play WWE each night.

Luckily at the VERY tail end of the month, things improved.  We managed to put together a bedtime routine that takes somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour and has a really high success rate.  It has been life changing.  Hopefully in the next few months we can shave some time off the bedtime routine because weekday minutes between the time I get home and go to bed are a precious commodity.

Mama & Daddy not being able to take pictures without shadows in them is HILARIOUS.

Okay - now for the fun stuff.  This little sweet pea is a busy bee.  Girlfriend has places to go and milestones to hit.  Sometime around her 5 month birthday she started sitting up unassisted for short amounts of time.  She always seemed so disinterested though that I didn't document it.  I told my co-workers I was worried she would never be a sitter because she wouldn't ever try on a Friday.  (Naturally disinterest in paranoid mama speak conjures images of your child being wheeled into kindergarten on some type of cot.  Duh.)  That very next day she started sitting up.  And not like wobbly sitting up.  Like the type of sitting up that you would think she'd been doing it her whole life.  That is such a Ryan thing to do.  I can just hear her mentally saying, "look I can do this mama... now relax your face off."

About 2 weeks later she started maneuvering herself into a sitting position on her own.  She was not taking making me look like a total fool to the general population lightly, obviously.  Somewhere in that 2 week timespan she also started to pull herself around on her belly.  This new found sense of urgency in the realm of mobility was motivated by... my iPhone.  Ryan pointed out that this is definitely a sign that my genes are in there somewhere.

What else, what else?  This month Miss Em discovered her feet in a big way.  She was obsessed with them.  I think she started to give her Aunt Julie a solid run for her money when it comes to who loves babies in footie pajamas more.

Mom & Dad, you guys thinking you're going to get quality pictures of me after a full work day really is cute.  I applaud your optimism.

Another super exciting milestone (mild sarcasm font) was her cultivation of an intense shriek.  In Casa Martin we are accustomed to the angry scream.  This month Emery added a happy just-because-I-want-to shriek to her arsenal of sounds.  The pitch makes even Lola a bit weary.  Normally when she does it though, she's so happy and wiggly you can't really do anything but beam at her.

Another new trick from her bag this month was blowing raspberries.  All.  The.  Time.  Bonus points if you have just shoveled some food in her mouth.  Again- it usually comes at times when she's so happy you can't do anything but laugh.  After you wipe the rice cereal off your nose anyway.

Uhhhh.  Is this photo shoot still going?

Baby girl continues to grow more and more fond of toys and picking things up.  For the bulk of the month her favorite toy was my iPhone.  She is as proficient at locating it as the Find My iPhone app.  Silly goose.

Each day this little angel shows us more and more of who she is.  She continues to be incredibly curious.  If she can get to it, she wants to pick it up and put it in her mouth.  She's also very in-tune with what Ryan or I is doing and where we are at all times.  She constantly has her eye on both of us and it is getting increasingly difficult to sneak off to another room to get something.  She will also stop what she's doing or what she's playing with to come over and do whatever it is you're doing if she sees you holding something that looks interesting to her (read: everything).

How does she take up this whole calendar now?!  No one gave you permission to grow, little lady.

I know that I sound like a broken record, but I don't care- it has truly been another incredible month.  We are having so, so much fun with our little princess.  Even on the difficult days, I wouldn't go back to life without her for all the money in the world.  I don't know why we got so lucky, but I sure am glad that we did.  Can't wait to see what month 7 brings (spoiler alert: crawling)!

** pure when not attempting to put her to bed.

The School Stuff
This month school officially started for all the kiddos who don't come over the summer.  Em has a new classmate and I BELIEVE it's a boy.  Which is crazy because her class of 6 has been all girls since she started.  That little man has no idea he's experiencing the luckiest time in his life at such a young age.

Another milestone for this month was that she received her first "incident report".  I imagine these reports are really designed for when kids get into altercations and/or talk back to their teachers.  At this age they're used to inform you that your child keeps checking herself out in the mirror, falling and bumping her cheek/forehead/chin.

Doing her best impression of the spin cycle.

I can't remember if I've said that about once a week when I walk into school for pick up, as soon as I walk in the doors I can hear my child screaming.  No, not A child screaming.  MY child.  It really does make me laugh.  She's such a diva.


One of my favorite stories this month was when I picked her up one day and her afternoon teacher told me that she'd been sitting on the floor playing with one of her classmates most of the afternoon.  Apparently "playing" meant sporadically touching eachother's faces and/or taking toys.  So cute!  One day when she's older we'll discuss sharing.  For now the mental imagery of my little boogie bear starting to play with other kids just warms my heart.

I'm ooooooover it.

The Stats

• Height:  27.25" inches (90th percentile)
• Weight: 17 lbs 7 oz (70th percentile)
• Head:  16.25" (55th percentile)
• Diaper size: 2
• Clothes: 6-9 months.  Sad mama.
• Feeding:  Still eats pretty much every 3 hours, give or take 30 minutes.  She has either 3 or 4 six oz bottles at school.  
• Firsts: 
• First real belly laughs (August 8th)
• First time up on HANDS (not elbows) and knees (August 16th)
• First time Mom pronounced her an official sitter (aka she could officially sit for a minute or so by herself) (August 18th)
• First solid food (August 23rd)
• First time pulling self around on belly/army crawling (August 25th)
• First time double fisting toys (August 29th)
• First nap in her crib (September 1st)
• First time pushed herself up to sitting (September 2nd)
• Games:  When she's in a good mood she really likes to pull herself across the blanket to get to a toy across the way.  She is also really digging pulling on your face- this includes, but is not limited to, your glasses, your nose, your mouth, etc.
• Songs:  Still rocking that hush little baby song- the DJ Amy re-mix.
• Sleep:  If I thought 5 months was bad, I really had no idea what was coming.  This month has been a total disaster.  Many times this month it's taken as much time as it did when she was a newborn.  Towards the end of the month we implemented a pretty strict bed time routine which aids in actually getting her into bed- usually between 8:15 & 8:30.  However, her wake up schedule is alllll over the map.  There are nights when she sleeps all the way through until I have to wake her up and there are nights when she wakes up every 3 hours.  Le sigh.  I am officially starting to believe that our child may never sleep through the night.
• Food:  This month we introduced solids.  We started out with rice cereal once a day.  She eats between 1 & 2 tablespoons as part of our bed time routine.  She has her good days and her bad days, but overall I would say she's taking to it pretty well!
• Other Notables:  Your mama & daddy looooooove you!

Sadly this was the best fanny shot we got.  Le sigh.