Livia is 6 months old! It's hard to believe how much she has changed and grown from October until now. We have survived a lot of challenges and are enjoying her now more than ever. The past month has been great for Livia. At five months she suddenly became much more content and now she is a happy baby most of the time. She still loves to stare at her hands and feet, along with a new joy of rolling across the entire room. About a month ago she started saying something that sounds like "Hi", which is very cute even if it's not really purposeful. We are starting to sign a couple of things to her, such as "milk" and "eat". Despite her refusal to eat for the first couple months of her life, she is now a very hungry baby. She squeals with delight when she sees the bottle and tries to grab it from our hands.
It is crazy how much our lives have changed in one half of a year... and we know that she will be a totally different baby in another 6 months. I am finally realizing that Livia won't always be a baby but will actually grow into a full person. We didn't know what to expect during the pregnancy, and parenthood so far has certainly had many crazy and funny moments. We have tried to roll with things whenever possible because our daughter certainly has a very strong mind of her own (we learned that very quickly when she screamed almost the entire night on our first day home from the hospital because she was hungry). With the early struggles to breastfeed, I never would have thought that I would be exclusively pumping 6 months later but that turned out to be the best solution for us. The pump has become part of my daily routine. As much as it can be a burden (especially when I am exhausted or traveling), there is part of me that looks forward to having a little down time each day and that will actually miss it whenever I do decide to give it up (though having the freedom and extra 2 hours/day should compensate for any feelings of nostalgia). We started solids this week and it's strange to think that before we know it, she will be eating regular meals...
