Six Months Old

by erikrasmussen, on Flickr")Well, Nora, it's hard to believe, but we're actually on the complete opposite side of the sun from where we were when you were born. It's been a long 470 gigameter semicircular journey, kiddo. As clichéd as it is to say so, you're changing every day and each day you are slightly more interesting and fun to be around than the last. Your current record for sitting upright unaided is about 20 seconds. You've recently learned an adorable little trick. When I feed you at night, I sit in the nursing chair we bought at IKEA and you lie on my lap, with your head nestled in my left elbow. I give you the bottle with my right hand (I've never fed you with my left, ever) and you slurp it down. Eventually you lose interest and start to blow rather than suck, so I remove the bottle (because there will be no playing with food in this house, young lady!) and wipe up whatever you've just spit out onto your chin. The other night, however, when I took the bottle out of your mouth and set it on the table to the right of the chair, you contracted your abdominal muscles and sat up on your own to look at the bottle sitting on the table. I burst into teary-eyed laughter that woke up your mother. You've totally got the association between the bottle and the sweet goodness it contains.

For every month birthday you've had so far, I've made hamburgers. I hope to continue this tradition for your first year, with the exception of your 9-month birthday on Christmas Eve. Last weekend, your Aunt Belén announced that she would be attending your six-month birthday. She came to your first month birthday...unlike you. Your grandmother, Marce, just had an operation on her foot that has her off work for a couple weeks, so she announced that she'd be coming too. Then your great-grandfather said he'd come too, and at that point, your retired grandfather, Juan, pretty much had to join them. So at noon today they all arrived. As is the custom now, they barely even glanced at me on their mad dash towards you. When your mother arrived home from work at 13:00, I had the food ready, and we dined on some delicious (if I may say so myself) burgers and fries which were snarfed down before I could take a photo of them. Then came the cake and candles and photos and song. The Feliz Cumple-medio-año song scared you a bit I think. But you generally loved all the attention and were fascinated by the flame on the candle. For every photo below, there were about four of you staring at the candle, transfixed.

With your Aunt Belén

All the attendees of your party. Marce, Juan, your handsome sideburned old man, Abuelo, Belén, Marga, and the birthday girl herself.

Great-Grandpa!

Fire...So...Pretty! Can't...Look...Away...

Proud grandparents.

Happy birthday, Sweetie!

We've done pretty well so far, the three of us. I'm optimistic that we can make it to a full year.