Six Months Old: Vivian and Family
Posted By Jill on December 5, 2010
Half a year. It’s always hard to believe children grow up so fast, and at the same time, it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t around… isn’t that strange? I so wish I had more time to sit and reflect on the moments and milestones, but we keep so busy that it’s tough to make time for blogging these days. As it is, most of this post was written in the car on the way to visit Jeremy’s grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. There always seems to one more load of laundry, dishes to do, or work… I do, though, make sure to soak it all in as the moments happen, and I just have to hope I can remember them when I do have time to write! Sometimes I’ll snap a picture or video to help jog my memory, though it’s hard to find time to get those edited and posted too. I didn’t even get an official 6-month photo of Vivian, but this one I think will do the trick – at least it’s taken on the right day! I apologize that this lack of time results in fewer but much longer posts…
Vivian, our little (?) six-month-old, is almost crawling now. She can get up on “all fours” but hasn’t yet mastered actually moving one of them to get herself going. She’s good at pushing herself backwards, though, especially on the wood floor. It won’t be long though as she seems to be determined to be able to chase that brother of hers! She loves her jumper now too and has pretty much graduated from her activity mat. She rarely plays lying on her back anymore. She does sit up by herself now and rarely falls over. Vivian is still a content and happy baby. She really only fusses when she’s tired or hungry. We’re so spoiled! She had some issues transitioning to a bottle, but we’re well beyond that now. Our week in Madison helped – cousin Matthew was a great help, and Nana, Julie and Emily all had a turn too! She brightens many days with her big smiles – even strangers in stores or restaurants will comment when we’re out and about. She also continues to love her sleep as well. Yea! She is growing quickly, though, and it’s sad how many outfits we’ve skipped right past because I’m sure it’s too big until all of a sudden I put it on and it’s too small! She’s also growing in the opposite way Mac did – he was always a size smaller in pants than shirts – so all my great packing of the bins of clothes has been foiled!
At Vivian’s 6-month check-up, she was still in the 90th percentile for weight (18 pounds, 2.5 ounces) and height (just shy of 27 inches), and the 75th percentile for her head size (17 inches ’round). The doctor could feel tiny “buds” for her bottom teeth but said it could be 3-4 more weeks before we see anything poking through. She also got another set of five shots, poor girl, including her flu shot, but she was a trooper! Not much else newsworthy from the doctor.
Mac is tolerant of his little sister and getting better each day. He sometimes doesn’t like it when she touches his toys, and he will grab them away from her, but he’s never mean to her. It’s adorable how she’ll pop her head up in her crib to look over the bumper and see what Mac is doing. He still doesn’t interact with her too much, but it was a big step when we were all at the dinner table last week and he was willing to take her hand while we prayed. 
He is also a nice brother and good helper when she drops her toys if she’s in her swing or walker – he’ll kindly pick them up and give them to her.
Mac is suffering some bedtime struggles right now. After talking with my sisters, I’m sure it has to do with how unstructured our schedules have been in the past couple of months with Jeremy gone so much and our trips to Madison, and me being home; Mac stays home some days, goes to daycare some days at his normal time and sometimes later in the morning… you get the picture. I would hope that we can combat the problem and get through it quickly by creating a much more strict bedtime routine for him and a better structure of his days as well.
Other than bedtime, Mac continues to grow into a very polite, happy little boy. We have the typical toddler/preschooler struggles when he doesn’t want to do something, but that’s pretty normal behavior and we deal with it firmly. Occasionally it turns into a longer power struggle, but as I posted one evening on my Facebook status, “I am the mommy. I ALWAYS win!”
We’ll be going through a few more transitions in our scheduling in the next couple of months. At the beginning of November, Jeremy was finally offered, and started, a full-time job. That was terrific news for us! It means his schedule and his income will be much more stable and predictable. It was a long time coming – three years we made his self-employment work! A week after that, we learned that my sister is closing her home daycare, effective at my Christmas break. Fortunately for us, I have an extremely flexible employer, and now Jeremy has stable income. Jeremy and I talked through some scenarios, then I talked to my principal, and we worked out a plan for the remainder of the school year. My sister who was doing daycare will be working a new job from 12-6 so is free in the mornings. She will come to our house to watch the kids in the morning while I go to work until 11:00. Then I’ll come home and work another few hours at home (during naptime). I haven’t worked out the details yet with our business administrator, but I may also reduce my hours so I’m not quite as stressed out trying to make sure I get enough time in. My hope is to reduce my hours to 30/week so I am working only 2 hours a day from home. That allows me a good amount of focused time at work each day to get a lot accomplished, and I’ll basically catch up on paperwork and email at home. Then we’ll have a whole new scenario next school year when Mac starts preschool! WHAT?!
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