Halfway to a Year

Yep, that major baby milestone of six months has already passed in our house and we're amazed (for a second time) at just how much humans grow and change in such a short period of time.  First, we were just excited to have her around.

Then, spontaneous smiles turned into plentiful happy grins and priceless giggles.

Now we're watching her every roll and we're stashing tiny toys away as we anticipate a very mobile baby.

We're working to update our pictures, but in the meantime, here are a few anecdotes about our favorite baby girl.

Early on, her sneezes always had this adorable little "ah-hoo" to finish them off.  Almost like a sigh.  We tried hard to capture it on video, but never made it to the camera quite fast enough, and unfortunately it seems that she's already outgrown this cute phase.

She has acquired several key baby skills - passing things from hand to hand, massive drooling, chewing and sucking on her fingers, getting her money's worth from her diapers, pulling hair and rolling (quickly!) in both directions. Lauren loves using all of her senses to explore - she watches things carefully, touches them to see how they feel, scratches them to see how they sound, and then, of course, puts them in her mouth to see how they taste. She is now eating rice cereal, oatmeal, and a few pureed fruits and vegetables.  Just sitting at the family breakfast/lunch/dinner table makes her happy and while her first try of a new food produces a less than impressed face, she seems to be enjoying the new tastes and textures.

We previously mentioned that Ryan adored Lauren, but at this point the admiration is mutual. When Ryan is around, she watches his every move and he certainly elicits the most smiles and laughs.  On school days, she already seems to anticipate his arrival home. A good example of Ryan's power over her happened recently on an occasion when her cereal wasn't arriving as quickly as desired.  Her wailing went a little like this - waaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! <turns head, distracted by Ryan> *silence "ooohhh, what's Ryan doing??"* <turns back towards the rest of the kitchen>  waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!  <turns head to look at Ryan> *silence "dude, I have the coolest brother"* <turns back>  waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!! .... and so it continued.

Lauren is lucky enough to spend one day at week at home with her Daddy. On Cheryl's first day back at work when Lauren was staying home with Eric, she got upset at one point, as babies do. Eric told her "Don't worry Lauren, I'm here." As a funny coincidence, she paused, said "Ma-Ma", and then continued to cry. Fortunately, Daddy now has a wonderful way to calm her down as she loves listening to him play the piano.

Lauren continues to be a bit of a Mommy's girl. Lauren's happy with others, and when Cheryl arrives home from work, she gets even happier. Well, happier as long as Cheryl is quick to pick her up shortly after arriving.  If she waits too long (more than a minute), Lauren gets very insulted. Often, when she is upset, all Cheryl needs to do is cuddle her, and she is instantly better - and who doesn't love a little baby cuddle.

We hope you enjoyed the first taste of our little lady!