6 months: How quickly they grow

  Alice is now almost 6 months old, and she's already grown so fast!  She has 2 bottom teeth coming in (they've already broken through the gums) and she's cutting a third.  She can now blow raspberries, and often does as one of the cats walks by.  She's also learning to sit up on her own, although when she gets excited she forgets and falls over.  She's bouncing, and talkative, and beautiful.  It amazes me that something so small and so helpless can change, and continues to change, those around her.

  Just this last week, over the Memorial Day Weekend, we went to see her grandmother and grandfather.  I have never seen my parents so happy as when they hold Alice, or when she laughs as they let her stand on their lap as she bounces.  Even my father, who has always been tough, rugged, and who I have never seen shed a tear, just melts when he holds his granddaughter.  He even panicked a little when she would sway from side to side as she was sitting up.  It was a side of my father I have never seen.

  We also have a plastic Fischer-Price Play Piano that Alice just loves to play in.  It has giant piano keys that she can press with her feet.  The piano keys that sit on the ground correspond to the keys on one of the rails, and they light up and make noise.  There's also 2 types of rattles attached, and on the other rail there's a mirror, some little plastic shapes, and a bell.  On the seat she sit's in, which rotates and slides, there are two ovals that have either balls, or that click when turned.  Over the last few months, I have watched her figure out not only how to turn up the volume of the toy, but also change the music type.  She is now able to turn herself around in her chair, and she's gaining the leg strength to move about on the rails a little bit.  She's also learned that she can flip the mirror around, and then flip it back.

  It's funny, really.  6 months ago I don't think I could have been impressed with a child learning to blow raspberries.  Now, as I watch what once was a black-and-white photo of a tadpole figure out that if she steps here, this thing lights up here, it shows how much a person changes.  I can tell you that everyday my daughter impresses me, and everyday I am just as surprised as she at the things she discovers.  I can't wait to see what new noise she learns to make, or watch as she interacts with the world around her, because to her, everything is new, inspiring, and mysterious.