Evie's 26th Week

You'll have to pardon me as I am I bit melancholy tonight writing this.  Evie will be 6 months tomorrow.  When she was born and we had some difficulty nursing, I downloaded an app on my phone that would count down to and up from events.  I created two events: one to track how long I'd been nursing (Evie's birth day), and one to track how long I had left to go (Evie's 1st birthday).  And, since we had difficulty for about 6 weeks, I will admit that I looked more at how long I had to go than how far I had come, because I was looking forward to the day when I would actually get my body back to myself (which I foolishly thought would happen after I gave birth) and would no longer have to be Evie's source of food.  Over time, as nursing got easier, I began to focus more on how long I'd been doing it, and have been proud of the determination I've had to provide the best nutrition for Evie.

Today is the last day that the number of days I have left to go (183) will exceed the ones I've done (182).  And for some reason, this makes me sad.  I thought I would be very excited to have gotten to the halfway point.  But I guess I'm realizing that it means Evie will be closer to be one year old than to birth, and that makes me wish I could just bottle up the moments we have together so I can enjoy them always.  I know..., this is a variation on the same theme I've written about recently, but I can't help it.  I have fallen absolutely in love with this little girl, and I almost hate to see her grow up.

Of course, I'm proud of her accomplishments, which have now expanded to rolling tummy to back and back to tummy with ease.  I took some video of her rolling earlier this week, and she's gotten much more skilled in the last few days even.

Evie also "ate" some avocado this week.  And by ate, I mean she put her fingers in it and played with it, and shuddered any time some of it got into her mouth.

 

See how traumatized she is?  

That's okay.  I didn't like avocado until I was 27, so she has time. I also wanted to share one of my favorites from her tummy time this week.

Perhaps one of the reasons I'm a little melancholy right now is to do with the time of year it is.  I know a lot of people love Christmas-time, but I've found it a little sad the last few years since Grandaddy passed away in 2007 on Dec. 3rd, and Pappaw on Dec. 26, 2008.  I wish they were here to celebrate and see family, to share the wonderful booming laughs they both had, and especially to meet Evie.  They would have both enjoyed her so much.  I can just imagine her sitting in their laps, and the smiles she would have brought to their faces.

Of course, we are so lucky to have so much family here still to enjoy her.  We are looking forward to finally introducing Evie to her other grandfather and great-grandparents  in a week and a half, and to seeing Abba and Pat again, almost 6 months after the first time they met her.

And then we'll be in Memphis for Christmas and seeing the whole family, including Ryan, Aimee, and Evie's cousins.  I can't wait to see what Evie thinks of Addie and Will now that she's a little older and more interactive.

I've had Evie in my lap as I'm typing this because she and I are having, for the first time ever, an evening alone in our house.  I've gone on trips to Memphis before with just me and Evie, but we've never, since she was born, had the house to ourselves for an evening.  We've been playing in the exersaucer and the jumper, and had some floor time and some cuddle time.  And we've been listening to Christmas carols (of the religious nature, none of this "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" junk) to take a break from Raffi.  She amazes me with how much she loves music.  She is also very interested in what my fingers are doing, so I'm going to let her type her first ever message to you all:

;  .........................lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll]o000000lpppppppp'/
'bnnnnnnkunjnbhnbgv cfghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfyddyfffffffffffffffffffffffffffdt

There you have it folks.  Now that she's pounded the keys, it appears to be naptime for this almost 6 month old.  G'night!