Maya turns six months old in a couple of days so I thought I would post a little about her. Basically, the short of it is that she is all grown up. I remember with all my babies right around five months or so they suddenly transition out of that newborn phase into big babyness. I put her in the stroller yesterday and Aaron looked in and said, "She looks so big. So much older." He even tried to call his friends over to look but got distracted. She is such a great addition to our family and we all love her so. She is never short on attention from the kids, which is great for her but borderline frustrating for me. I've started calling her Boomerang because no matter where or when I set her down, she inevitably comes right back to me (via a sibling usually). I set her down so I can get something done, one of her siblings sees her lying on the couch or sitting in her chair and they just can't stand to not hold her so they pick her up. Of course it's not too long before she starts to slip or they get tired and bring her right back to me, then the cycle starts all over again. It's very cute but I'm starting to wonder if it is interfering with her physical progress because she doesn't get much time to practice rolling or try scooting or sitting or anything on her own because she is constantly being doted on by her brothers and sister (especially her sister). I guess it's worth it though. She is well-loved. And I am happy to postpone movement as long as possible.
Here are a few rare moments of her sitting or lying on her own (I assure you I had at least one kid crawling on my back trying to get at her while I took the pictures).
She loves to suck on her fingers and toes
Enjoying some Bumbo time
The following pictures are much more common sights at our house...
Lying with her reading brothers
Being "pink girls" with her sister
Libbie loves to be twins, and these shirts from Baba Marsha are particularly fun
Besides the fact that she is being held all the time, another possible reason for the lack of rolling, sitting, and crawling might have to do with the fact that Maya's been having a hard time lately. In addition to teething, she has had various sicknesses--a cough for about two months, then diagnosed with a double ear infection and then reacted to the antibiotics with a severe rash.
It was equally disturbing and heart-melting to wake up to this
The rash went away but her cough still isn't getting better. It might take awhile. I can hear that her bronchial tubes are still really tight because of the constant wheezing. Poor baby. She still manages to sleep all night and be more or less cheerful (except that she wants me to hold her all the time and isn't sleeping as well for naps). Despite the sicknesses though, she still thinks her big sister is hilarious...
We love our little Maya/Boomie/Karate Girl/Lucy/Cutie Pants/Bubbaleh!
While we were in Iowa this past Thanksgiving, Ben's mom Marsha gifted us all a photo session with a photographer in their ward. We did our best to align all the conditions to achieve maximum quality and minimum discomfort. It worked out pretty well and we ended up with a few great shots, some of which we used on our Annual Update and the sidebar of this blog, but there are several other good ones that I thought deserved to be documented here, especially this one of the larger Peters group.
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