The Michael Phelps of Babies

Today Sybilla is spending the day with her Papa, whom she just adores. Papa dotes on her like nothing else and loves to play with her. He tells her that she is his favorite granddaughter (even though she is the only granddaughter!) and blows raspberries on her poopeck (bellybutton). Since Little S is quite the mover, Papa has taken to creating a baby corral using the dining room chairs, pillows, and barstools to keep her out of trouble. Sybilla LOVES the baby corral because it presents all sorts of interesting views and things to climb on. My mom likes to call it baby jail. I got lazy this morning and didn't change Sybilla out of her blue stripey jammies, which look like little prison dungarees. Of course, Papa gave her a wooden spoon yesterday, so before Mommy left this morning, she was teaching Sybilla to "rattle the bars" with her spoon. Very cute!

The kid just keeps taking off each day and is getting stronger and stronger. My dad calls her the Michael Phelps of babies, she's so amazing! Granted, I know this kind of development is not normal, and really, it's just her physical movement and development that's ahead of schedule. Mentally, she's still 6 months old. I'm glad for that, because I'm not ready for her to talk back to me yet, which if my teenage years were any indication, Michael and I are in for it.

We had some good friends of ours visit this weekend and with them came their six year old daughter Mathilda and 9 month old son Alexander. Sybilla and Alexander were such a joy to watch as they chased each other, rolled on each other, and stole each other's toys. Mathilda loves her baby brother and was adorable playing with both babies. Sybilla also had the opportunity the weekend before last to meet her second cousins Evan, Jenny, Bella, and Mia. The other kids range in age from 6 to 12 and Mia is about 3 weeks older than Sybilla. Mia is a great sitter and very sweet tempered, whilst Sybilla literally crawled circles around her. Little S is really enjoying being around other kids and we are very excited about her starting day care in the next couple of weeks where she will get to play with big kids again!

We officially turn 6 months old on Thursday, and our 6 month well check is next week. I'm going to guess she weighs at least 17.5 pounds. I'm going to have to ask about feeding her more solids and meat, because this girl is so hungry all the time from all her crawling and pulling and standing that I'm worried I won't be able to keep up with her. Her sleeping patterns have worsened as well, with her first wakeup time now coming about three hours after she goes down at 8 pm. We're getting sleep in about 2 to 3 hour snatches, which is killing Mommy. We did not have a very good night last night and I don't know what else to do, since Ferberizing didn't really work and the other methods we've tried have sucked just as hard. I'm willing to give the Ferber method another go, but I think we need to have our doctor's help on this one. The books, internet, and lots of other moms all say that she should be physically able to sleep at least 6 hours straight, which would be manna from heaven, but we have yet to experience that on a regular schedule. The little rugrat has given us glimpses of the future to come a few times now, but they're usually one hit wonders.

Anyhoo, I will post some pictures and videos tonight (I ran out of time to upload stuff from the cameras last night) so that you can see the little hooligan in all her crawling, standing, and bear-walking glory.

Until then!
Kelly & the Gang