6 Months? Already?

Wow. On the 10th - less than a week from now - my baby girl will be 6 months old. Ill give that a second to sink in. 6 months. Ive been spending so much time trying to get through what I imagine to be the toughest year of my parenting life, half of that year has snuck up from behind me and bopped me on the head. I mean, really? Abby was just born. 6 months ago. Ok, ok, moving on.

I do feel as if we are getting things down and at least half of the time I have things borderline under control. We have settled into a routine with Abby, and know what her triggers are, and try to avoid them at any cost. (The wrath of Abby is not something to mess with or joke about. Its serious. Its shrill. Its loud. It makes your skin crawl and your stomach churn.)There are two things that always make her happy, no matter what. 1. The carrier. My Ergo has become our best friend, as well as anyone who is helping with her. 2. My breasts. This girl LOVES to nurse.

I want to talk about it a little bit, because its become probably the most important part of my life at this time. Abby loving to nurse is special to me. Rory didnt. In fact, after I went back to work she weaned herself and stopped breastfeeding at all, except for the early morning feeding when she was really relaxed and sleepy. My production slowly decreased and 5 long months of pumping after returning to work, my production was not worth my time pumping and I stopped. Abby is a different story. In fact, recently she has gone on a bottle strike. She has refused to drink anything from the bottle for Ryan for an entire day, for Cheryl for 4 hours, and now even Diane, for 2 days now. She just waits until I get back to her, then wants to nurse every few hours. It keeps me up at night, and Im tired, but if Im being honest with myself, I have to admit that I LOVE it. Abby is my baby. And she loves me. She loves me more than anything else. (Well, she loves my boobs, but they are a part of me.) Sometimes when I am away from her my boobs actually ache and itch for her to be in my arms, sucking away. And when she is in my arms, it just feels right. Everything is as it should be in that moment.

I have decreased my pumping. Being back at work now for three months, and my production only slowing as I have wanted it to, I feel secure. So I only pump twice a day at work, and then not at all when I am with her (unless it gets out of control and I have to pump some off just to release some pressure). I have given away half of my storage (all from August and some from September) and I am thinking that I might not ever need any of it.

She is also about this close to crawling. She is full on army crawling, and if you put her down on the ground and turn around, she will be clear across the other side of the room. If you prop her up she can sit up for a few seconds without falling and if you stand her up against something she will stand there for several seconds before she looses her balance and falls down. This girl is determined to be on the go.

Aurora is still no closer to being potty trained. We have given up, and just try to ask her as often as we can if she wants to use the potty. I guess it will happen when it happens. I know I could train her bootcamp style - if I had an undivided weekend with my full attention to spend. But I dont, so screw it. Its the same with weaning her from her paci.

Abby turning 6 months old also means we are one step closer to our next vehicle, which is going to be a Jeep. Probably in a year from now. The accident with the Mazda was probably the best thing in the world for us - noting that Ryan was totally unharmed from it. For one thing, we realized that we didnt need a second vehicle. The second thing we realized was that the Mazda was a great people/town vehicle, and a good option for a "family" vehicle, but it wasnt the ideal one for us. And finally, with it being totaled we were able to reassess our situation and really look at what we needed and wanted in one. We had already known that a large part of the family that we want to raise our girls in is a traveling, outdoorsy family. We want to camp and hike. All the time. We want to take lots of road trips. We want to visit the great outdoors. And we dont want to do it in a touristy, crowded, paved kind of way. We want to do it in an off road way - take the road less traveled. So with hours hunched over crazy Ryan spreadsheets, and after countless talks before bedtime, and after work car talks in our too-small-for-a-family-of-4-Corolla researching every other vehicle on the market that could possibly meet our needs (and wants, hopes and dreams for our active family lifestyle) we have decided that a Jeep is where it is at. We are excited to for once have something to religiously save for (instead of just doing it to be judicious with our money - which is what we normally do), and very much looking forward to this next stage in our lives. It symbolizes freedom to us. Because it means that we finally have our own family to do what we want - instead of being a part of someone elses and doing what they want.