Charity is now almost 1 year old!  The biggest change I'm thinking of will be to wean her, which I think I will start to do after her 1st birthday.  Not because I mind it, but because I'm afraid it will get harder and harder to wean her after that.  I'm reluctant to do so also because it signifies that she's really not a baby anymore.  It's hard to let go!

The other day after waking up from her nap she carried her green blankie with her as I lifted her out of her crib and onto the bed, where I laid down with her.  She crawled a little bit, collapsed again on her belly out of the joy falling on her blankie again.  Smiled at me lying down.  And then she offered the blankie to my face so that I could smell it too!  I thought it was so smart of her, so thoughtful.  And it reminded me of Tim, because he was big on the smell of his blanket as a kid, and still is. :)

Charity is about 6 and 1/2 months, and has done several new things that I just have been too lazy to record/jot down.  So here goes:  She's past the stage where she looks in the mirrors of the book and smiles at me now.  In her "Pat the Bunny" book we read before she goes to bed, she would smile back at me for about 2 weeks, which ended about a two weeks ago.  She is now interested in touching everything and especially the binding in that book.  She's loving exer-saucers.  She's learned to manipulate the one that we brought back from Colorado, and because she has that she's lazy about belly time even more because she can't do as much on the floor.  We went to Target today and Tim put her in the exersaucers there and she enjoyed it soo much.  So cute.  I see her to the things I used to see Debbie's kid Daniel do when I visited her about two months ago - turning the rotating thing with balls inside and flapping her hands down on the eating booster seat tray.  (She doesn't do it so much, which makes things easier.)  She's still really interested in text - Dad reading the newspaper, the warning sign on the carseat, the warning sign on the bath, the back of the teddy bear box.  I think she also enjoys exersaucers more because she's familiar with them from childcare at the church and at 24 Hour Fitness.  It's great - I love to watch her enjoy herself.  I can see why parents get their kids toys like this - it's just great fun to watch.  I read the expected growth poster and she's totally on track - sitting with support, standing with support, needing things to put in her mouth, (almost) crawling on belly.  She's also so big in her carseat now that she can touch the top of her sun shade.  Cute!  I'm just hoping the diapers we bought today will fit her until they're gone.  We bought the big pack with over 100 diapers and it goes from 16lbs -18, and she's only at the beginning of 16lbs (weighing in at 15lb and 16oz I think at her 6 month well-check, but she's also a big girl and is 6-9 month olds are expected to grow 2-3 lbs a month!  She's sitting up very well, wanting to sit up, a strong back.  And her schedules are more regular now - few fights going down to sleep both for nighttime and daytime naps, and last night she only woke me once after a 6 hour stretch.  Pretty good. 

Eating is an adventure.  She ate pretty well today and yesterday and the day before yesterday I think because she didn't have iron the day before yesterday and today and yesterday I gave it to her before her bath.  I think it's been turning her off of food, so I'm thinking of giving it to her right before her bath.  She will clearly signal when she's done with her food, and will spit it out, but not unless you're forcing her to eat beyond what she wants.  She'll also just turn her head away and purse her lips closed to let you know her will before she spits.  Good girl. 

We're really enjoying our time with her. 

The video feature seems to be having problems, and from my chat with Gah-jeh, it seems like that's not the only feature of Xanga having problems because she couldn't find me as a user and I couldn't find her at first.  I haven't been good about uploading as often, but when I do, I'll try to check to make sure it got on.  And if not, we may need to go to Facebook.