Half a year - 6 months old

Tomorrow my baby is going to be 6 months old. Sitting here I can't even believe it has been half a year. It has gone by so fast and has been the most incredible 6 months of my life. My little baby is getting so big, I miss her being itty bitty already.

 My sweet girl only 5 days old

17lbs of beautiful baby girl

I know that in six short months I will be sitting here and reflecting on her first year, so I am trying desperately to hold onto these fleeting beautiful months with my not so itty bitty baby.

She is currently swaddled napping away, Matt is 5ft away in my bed napping too and from the monitor I can hear the steady sound of both of them breathing and my heart swells. I love being her mama, I love watching Matt with her. She loves her daddy so much. When he comes home from work and she hears him, she lights up. He'll get close to her and she'll reach out both of her hands to cradle his face. I swear she waits all day for that moment, because for the rest of the night, he is hers. There is nothing in this life that makes my happier, seeing her with him, having the three of us together, because it makes her so happy to have both her parents. It is still overwhelming just how much I love her and how I want to spend every second of every day with her. I cherish every moment.

I've been back to school for 2 months now, and in 6 months (just 8 days before her birthday) I will be graduating with my master's degree. I can't believe that at 24 I will have earned my master's degree and not even have a one year old. This has been my dream. Raise a family, get my masters, become a nurse and be happy. I can't believe at 24 that I will have achieved that. Like I told mom yesterday, I am already looking forward to getting my doctorate and having more babies. I have never been more sure of myself and what I am doing in my life. It feels good to know that I have stumbled (incredibly ungracefully) down my perfect path. 

The last 6 months have had their ups and downs, but one thing is for certain. She is happy. She is healthy. She is perfect. Because of her I have grown up and become a better person. My mantra is to best by her. Behave, act and react by what is best for her. While I might not always keep my emotions in check (hello I'm a female) I always take a step back, apologized and continued on. I know that I will never regret my words or actions living this way.

At 6 months Scarlett continues to absolutely thrive and flourish in her beautiful little life. Raspberries are still her favorite, in between them she coos and makes her Scarlisaurus rex noises. She is always chattered, drooling and smiling her gummy smile from elf ear to elf ear. The last two weeks she has figured out how to sit up, and when she's not jumping in her bouncy like a mad woman, she is sitting and playing with her toys. She's figured out her hands to a T, although he depth perception is still a little bit off. She loves faces and is always putting a hand out to touch a cheek, grab your nose, or palm your mouth for a kiss. But her arms are crazy and you have to be cautious while walking around and carrying her because she'll grab the wall or the banister of the stairs and hold on for dear life. Mainly to scare the crap out of the person holding her AND for a good laugh. We started her on homemade solids this month. Once a day she'll get two ice cubes of either guacamole, squash or sweet potato. I'm in no rush to increase the amount or frequency, it's more for her to learn and to play. She's loving it.

I have been working on moving her to the cradle. While insanely weary because of her reflux, it was needed. Girlfriend cannot sleep in her car seat until she is 18. The transition is well....going. We went from her sleeping 11-12 hours straight a night, to up to a minimum of 3x. It's exhausting. Matt has been graciously tag teaming with me, taking turns rocking her back to sleep, changing diapers, more rocking. The worse was 8 times in 9 hours. She's still swaddled because her arms are crazy and she can't sleep. However, around 5-6am she can't stand being swaddled and more and spends the next hour in bed with me crazily smacking me in the face and herself. The sweetest though was last Monday. It had been another rough night and Matt was tag teaming. She woke up when Matt was leaving for work, she did her normal wake up routine where she babbles and coos to me, putting her palm on my mouth for me to kiss it. Matt said her name and she swung her head around to find him on the other side of her. She did her little excited wiggle, smiled and cooed at him, and with her other hand poked him in the eye and then put her palm on his mouth for him to kiss. She was on cloud 9, she had each of us on a side, kissing her little hands and smiling at her. She kept looking between us, giggling and blowing raspberries.

Life with her is wonderful. Here is to another six incredible months with Scarlett Alexandra.

The Year of Scarlett - 21 weeks 3 days

A new year, means a new start. 2012 was amazing in that it was the year my baby girl came screaming into this world. That was the best part of the year for certain. However, I spent the vast majority of the year focusing on making everyone around me happy, especially one person in particular. That bit me in the booty.

But now, now it's 2013! A brand spankin' new year. It has been dubbed "The Year of Scarlett". Like the whole Chinese Year thing, but not lol. I spent the last few months of 2012 focused on someone else, trying to pick up the pieces, and far too sad for my own good. Well. I'm so freaking over that. I'm done being sad. It's such a waste of time an energy. I am going to be happy and focus on the squishy ball of happy I'm blessed enough to call my daughter. I guess you can say it's my New Year's resolution. The Year of Scarlett. 365 days focused on that beautiful baby girl and her happiness, as well of mine. And 22 days in, damn it's been good.

Now I know that it would be ignorant to say that I will be happy all 12 months, every single day, every hour. And I'm sure 2013 will have it's sadness, tears and anger. I have a strategy to counteract unnecessary suffering. When I was little my papa taught me how to find beauty in anything. Even something that wasn't innately beautiful had something beautiful about it. It was all a matter of perspective, how you looks at something. Well, that's how I feel about situations that may make me feel sad, angry or just overall upset. I've been practicing turning the situation around and finding the positive instead of focusing on whatever the negative may be. I'm finding that I'm much happier and in a better place overall. I love this new outlook on everything.

So far it's been a wonderful 22 days. A lot of amazing things have already happened and I am so excited to see what the rest of the year is going to bring. I started back at school and it feels great being back. I'm starting to feel like I've gotten into a routine. I like the grind of school. There are some great people in my cohort who have really embraced me and made me feel welcomed. I'm grateful for that seeing as I knew no one walking in. I learned how to start IVs, which is totally badass. Besides school I'm happy being at work. I love the break from reality there, and challenging my mind. Other great things to happen? My good friend Sarah had her son last week, he is a true blessing and I CANNOT wait to get my hands on him. I've also spent a lot of time surrounded by my incredible friends and family. What more could I ask for?

Scarlett continues to thrive. She'll be 5 months this week! She is just this beautiful, vivacious little soul who makes everyone around her smile. She still rarely cries and 99% of the time is smiling and giggling. She's learned how to blow raspberries and will duel you. She also does a darling kissy face. Her feet are her absolute favorite to both play with and suck. We're still working on rolling over, but that huge noggin of hers is hard to move around lol. I love the time I get to spend with her and feel so lucky that 4 days a week its her and I (well...and her dad too). 

I love Friday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays. They're the days of the week that I have off and get to dedicate to Scarlett. Our typical day includes us waking up between 8:30-9, she nurses, I eat breakfast, she jumps and then we take our morning naps (oh yes I nap too). One of us gets dressed before noon, we switch off days. Somewhere in there I bathe. We play, visit friends or run errands all afternoon. Then in the evening Matt is here. We play, she takes a bath, nurses and goes to sleep. This is my favorite part of the entire day. Rockin' and readin'. I rock her in my rocker while she nurses and read on my kindle. It reminds me of when I was pregnant, when I would lay in bed and feel her move and tumble around with my arms hugging my belly. It was my selfish pleasure. I got to enjoy her all to myself, it was just her and my time. This is the closest I have to that. She's all snuggled against me, breathing in time, while we rock endlessly in by the kindle glow. I love it, I love every second of it. I think it's because I know it wont last forever.

Since it's getting close to Valentine's Day (one of my favorite holidays solely because of all the pink, hearts and chocolate) and being the beeb's first I'm going balls to the wall. Before she was even born my mom bought this googley eyes V-Day cards for her to send out. So we're doing V-Day cards with pictures of her inside. I did photoshoot one that we're not going to use in the cards, just more for my shits and giggles. The turned out darling, baby girl loves having her pictures taken.

Such a good representation of her

Want a kiss? Drool included!

Yes,  2013 has been good indeed!