But I couldn't have asked for a better last baby. Just look at that sweet little girl! Arden loves to observe and take in the world around her. She is generally a happy babe, and only gets upset when she is tired. Last week Chris and I took her out to dinner with us, and after I nursed her she didn't make a peep the entire time. Just sat in her car seat or my lap and watched us eat while waving a toy around. She's a winner. I can tell she is starting to pick up a touch of stranger danger, but for the most part she is willing to let anyone hold her. A lot of the time Arden keeps a pretty stone cold face, but she has the funniest little smirk she gives out when someone is trying to get a smile out of her. Like, "People, I think you're kind of funny, but I won't give you the satisfaction of a full on smile." I just love this kid to pieces.
Arden is still our pint size little babe. At her six month well check she weighed in at 12lbs 5oz (1st percentile) and measured 24.5 inches long (4th percentile). She has managed to maintain the 1st percentile for about six weeks now, so hopefully she's found her curve and will just be a small little kid. No big deal. But we're still not to a point that anyone is comfortable enough to let her go the full period between well checks, so we'll be back at the breastfeeding clinics for weight checks every few weeks. Her head circumference was 42.5cm, which actually put it in the 56th percentile. This is only funny to me because Thea's head was regularly on the small side, and apparently Arden's is large for her size, but they both look the same to me. Haha.
We're hoping that Arden's spit up will continue to lessen allowing her to hold on to more calories. And that with the addition of some solid foods will help fatten her up. So far we've only given her mashed avocado mixed with a little bit of breast milk. The first few days she really didn't eat much of it, and was gagging a lot, but day four and five she actually began to open her mouth and want more and managed to put down nearly 1/8th of an avocado each day. Surely that will start to help the weight gain a little bit!
Eczema continues to be our other biggest battle. I feel like Arden is sticky A LOT, because we are trying to keep it from flaring, but with limited success. If we miss an application or if I have Arden outside for a period of time it gets bad fast. It is so frustrating. I shouldn't complain, I know that other people deal with much worse. It has just been difficult to get the other girls outside because I worry about Arden getting to hot or sweaty, and in general it is just annoying to always need to be putting stuff on her skin. But in the grand scheme of life I guess I'll take a happy healthy girl with eczema over some of the alternatives.
Miss Arden is no longer the unicorn sleep champion, but I can't hate on it too much. I was waking her to eat if she hadn't woken me by 4am, but now she generally wakes up by herself some time between 2 and 4am. There still isn't any bit of a consistent schedule to her sleep habits as far as the clock is concerned, but that has more to do with us being on the go than it does her. I also think she is starting to get her bottom teeth which might be contributing to some night waking. She falls asleep on her own in the rock 'n play for naps, and will fall asleep on her own at night if she doesn't fall asleep nursing.
We tried to switch over to the crib again, but she struggles to settle in there, and doesn't stay asleep, and just does a lot more crying. She was able to fall asleep in the crib while she was swaddled, but then she was nearly rolling over. And she doesn't settle in the zipadee zip in the crib. By seven months though, I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and work through the tears. I keep hoping that she'll start being more efficient at rolling and sleep on her belly and all will be well. Just not the case yet. At least she is sleeping in the zipadee zip in the rock 'n play? Making a little bit of progress. She is taking three naps a day, each of them between 1-2 hours.
Arden can now sit up for short periods unassisted. Really she can last several minutes if she doesn't get too distracted, but she isn't sturdy enough for me to just plop her down and trust her to stay upright. She definitely prefers to be sitting though. When on her back or doing tummy time her interest in being mobile is minimal. She can roll belly to back, and back to belly, but very rarely does it. I'm toeing the line between appreciating the fact that I don't think she'll be crawling any time soon, to being overly worried about her inability to move around. But with a death trap of a home full of LOL dolls, hatchimals, little legos and other various choking hazards, we're just going to appreciate her inability to move.
She actually likes to be in a standing position now. I was so worried because she didn't have any interest in supporting her weight on her legs, but that quickly changed. When she is seated, I can help pull her up to standing position fairly easily, without her wobbling around too much. She doesn't jump around in her jumper yet, but she is starting to bounce a little more. We're going very slow and steady with this gross motor stuff.
Arden made her first trip to Omaha in the last month. Maybe not as big of an adventure as Disney World or Georgia, but she is still doing a fair amount of traveling! She was great in the car on the way there. Slept for about half the drive, I nursed her, and then she just played with her toy for another hour or so without fussing at all. We didn't fair quite as well on the way home, and she pretty upset for the last 25 minutes of the drive. But overall I'd call it a success. While in Omaha we visited family and made a stop at the zoo. It was toasty but Arden did great, snoozed a bit in the stroller, and just looked around and did her baby thing.
Arden, don't hate me when I smother you with hugs and kisses and try to keep you my tiny baby forever. I love you so much.