Six Month Birthday

In honor of Miriam's 6-month birthday last Saturday:

THINGS MIRIAM CAN DO NOW

• Sit up and play for long periods of time
• Reach forward from a sitting position
• Transfer objects from one hand to another
• Pull herself to a kneeling position from a sitting position (she did this once in the crib)
• Go from a sit to her tummy
• "Army crawl on her tummy": puts her head down, squirms a bit and moves forward or backward, then looks up again
• Hold herself in a standing position for maybe 30 seconds
  

THINGS SHE DOESN'T DO

• Roll over; she did two months ago (back to tummy) but hasn't since (that we've seen)
  
• Imitate our gestures or sounds (she's probably learning our gestures and sounds, but I rarely see her mimicking us directly).
  

OTHER THINGS

• She loves to pull my hair and my beard; fortunately, both appear to be cemented solidly into my skull, and seem to lack pain receptors, so I don't mind really (I kind of like it because it's Our Thing). Chest hair, on the other hand.... (I now know why women (the breastfeeders) specifically do not have chest hair.)
  
• On both Saturday and Sunday morning, Jen had her sitting on the bed while I was trying to sleep late, and she said "Daa!" as if to say "Dad, get up and play with me!"
  
• When she is happy about something, she opens her mouth very wide like a Muppet, without making any sounds
  
• She is ticklish under her ribcage (when she's in a good mood)
  
• She likes peek-a-boo.
  
• It's hard to test her for permanence, because if I cover a toy with a blanket, she might move the blanket just because she thinks blankets are interesting. She still seems to be "out of sight, out of mind"
  
• As of yesterday's doctor's exam, she is 26.75" (that's almost 2 foot 3) and 16 pounds, 14 ounces. She's 90% for height, 70% for weight (and remember, she was born three weeks early!) She's a BIG girl (although taller than wide!)
  
• She'll be getting her first solid food Saturday; my mother is going to watch via iChat and webcam. She's starting with cereal, then onto non-sweet vegetables, sweet vegetables, and then fruit.
  
• Jen gave her an orange slice the other day, thinking she would throw it on the ground, but instead she started sucking on it...and sucking on it...and sucking on it. Guess she thought it was pretty good. :) I was rather surprised because every once in a while I've been tempted to give her a taste of something, only to think "No, Jen wants to do this in a specific order, I'd better wait."
  

In case I didn't post it here or you missed it, there are pictures of her (updated occasionally) at
http://picasaweb.google.com/ScottAHill

There are also pictures of our trip to Banff last month: Jen had a conference there, and so brought us along to babysit (I had to take a whole week off from work, because she had already bought the tickets and what could I do? :)