Six Months: Rolling, Sweet Potatoes and Bribes

Today Sadie is six-months old!  I can't believe how quickly the past six months have passed, despite the sleep deprivation.  She's getting bigger and bigger everyday, although I think the growth spurts might be slowing down a little bit.  She's wearing 18-month old outfits more and more and her twelve month outfits are starting to get a little bit too tight.  At least she's been wearing this size for a couple of weeks and hasn't grown out of it yet!

We went to Redding yesterday to get the tires and oil in the car changed and Paul dropped Sadie and I off at the mall.  That may have been a mistake (and it certainly felt like a mistake after about 20 minutes).  I guess I didn't realize that I haven't been to a mall on a Saturday in several years, much less on the Saturday before Christmas.  It was absolutely insane.  I did find myself saying at least ten times to strangers who asked, that Sadie is six months old.  The response every single time was.  "She's a big girl."

The trip started out with a meltdown in the the bathroom.  In the last few months Sadie's greatest fear in life has become the automatic flushing toilets in public restrooms.  I don't know how the fear can be specific to auto-flush toilets, but it is.  After making it through a few stores (and getting a call from Paul saying that he would be longer than he originally expected) I broke down and bought Sadie her first bribe.  She was about to start her second melt-down of the day in Old Navy.  I couldn't pick her up easily with the stroller, shopping bags and diaper bag (when I took her out of the stroller it would flip over because of the bags) and I picked up a giant fluffy bunny to try and distract her.  She glared.  I made the bunny hop around in front of her.  Her lip started to tremble.  I put the bunny down and picked up a cat that, frankly, I never would have picked out on my own.  She started giggling hysterically and grabbed the cat, hugging him while biting his nose.  

By the time we made it to the front of the line to pay (at which point I had to take the cat away from her so they could scan it and take the security thing off, causing another meltdown) we had caused a traffic jam of little old ladies in Christmas sweaters.  The cat did keep her quiet and happy for the entire rest of the trip and once we got to the car she passed out immediately, exhausted.

The biggest milestone of the week has been starting "real" food.  Other than milk Sadie has only had rice cereal to eat.  Last night we started our week of trying out sweet potatoes.  I don't know what I expected to happen when I fed her sweet potatoes, because she tries to eat absolutely everything that's near her.  I guess I just thought getting her to eat food would be difficult, because all the books have advice on getting your baby to eat food.  They also indicate that it takes about ten tries before your baby will enjoy a new food (definitely not true in this case).

Sadie is a "good eater."  She made a few little faces at first, but she ate half a jar of sweet potatoes without making a fuss and then wolfed down an entire bowl of rice cereal (I'm going to have to ask the doctor next week exactly how much she should be eating).  

Now it's time to go supervise the rolling across the living room floor.  Our new favorite thing is rolling from one side of the room to the other and then crying to be picked up and turned the other way because she can only roll to her left!