Lots of Catching Up!

Yes, I've been quite remiss in blogging lately. I'm not sure what the excuse is. Part of the problem is uploading photos. The photos that E shot on the camping trip were in RAW format, which means they take more time to process (i.e., he wants to fiddle with them). So that's mostly the hold-up, getting pics uploaded. I'm in the process of uploading pics, there may or may not be any in this entry, but if not now then soon.

G had her 6 month birthday on Monday. We can't believe how time really is flying. 6 months! I was extremely anxious about this too, for a number of reasons, the main one being getting her shots again. If you don't remember, G had a bad (in my mind) reaction to her 4 month shots and spiked a fever by evening and we had 2 failed attempts to give her Baby Tylenol which involved a lot of spitting up. The other thing on my mind was starting solids.

6 months is like the golden milestone. I might even argue that it is more significant than double digits of turning 10, the Sweet 16, being able to vote and go to war at 18, and the one everyone looks forward to, drinking at 21. For each of those milestones, there's just one or two rewards. 6 months is in anothe league, opening the floodgates of opportunities! At 6 months, G can now go on a cruise (she was not allowed to go on a recent cruise with E's family because she was 2 weeks shy of the Big Mark), she can start eating solid foods (meaning watery rice cereal and extremely blended baby food), she can use bug repellant and sunscreen, she can have ibuprofen, her doctor's visits are now every 3 months instead of 2, the list goes on. We didn't do much to celebrate all her new freedoms, just laid low after her shots to help her recover and be as comfortable as possible.

Well, I guess we did do one thing, we signed up G for a gymnastics/tumbling class. Since it was our first, I asked E to come to participate and document the experience for us. G had a blast! The class only had 3 babies in it, the others were about 8-9 months. G never once looked scared or fussy, and because of that, the teacher used her to demonstrate the moves throughout the class. The class uses music and movement to help the babies develop their muscles to get them ready for crawling (which the other two could already do) and walking. There are a number of "exercises" that we learned to do with G to help her muscles, for upper body, lower body, and back. G's favorite parts? Jumping, the bubbles, the rubber balls, and rolling in all sorts of new ways (horizontally with Mommy & Daddy, and vertically along a steam-roller type of thing).

Arm & shoulder exercises:

Here we are under the parachute:

G just woke up from her nap, so more to follow...