Well, little otter pup, little babaloo, little hoss-baby, you’re six! Months old. A (half) year. And we’ve kept you alive, and not only alive, but THRIVING. Your 6-month doctor’s appointment was today, and you’re 19 pounds 13 ounces, or the 95th percentile, up from 7 pounds 11 at birth. Almost 27 inches, up from 19.5 at birth. You are a large, pink baby, with delicious thighs. You’ve stolen all the dimples from everyone else and installed two deep ones in each cheek, two in each elbow, two in each knee, and then in a fit of greed one on each knuckle in your perfect little fists. Where will the rest of us get our dimples, now?

You roll back and forth and to and fro, though you didn’t for a while and made your mama nervous. At 4 months I talked to the doctor about it, and she said you just hadn’t found the proper motivation. Apparently, that motivation was your Granna and Pa coming to town when you turned 5 months, because Granna had you rolling front to back in about an hour of work and then you taught yourself to go the other way within a few days.

You sit and play happily, whether it’s with a wooden Montessori ring or a lights-flashing, song-tootling activity table. Sometimes the table plays a song you like, and your face lights up in a HUGE smile and you bounce, bounce, come on bounce, every baby in the club with a half an ounce.

Yesterday, in an experiment, I stood you up and placed your hands on the coffee table in front of you, and let go. And you stood! For ten seconds! Until you realized what was happening and folded in half, plopping down onto that ample booty.

Everyone remarks on how happy you are. You smile a smile that is somehow bigger than your mouth. It encompasses your whole head and radiates down to your arms, which you clench in front of your chest in sheer joy, and sometimes reaches as far as your legs, which kick out, draw in, kick out. It is possible to see this smile from behind you.

We love you and love getting to know you. More and more of your personality is starting to show. You’re making clear what you like (broccoli, the outdoors, being picked up) and what you don’t (getting dressed after your nightly massage, sitting for too long in your high chair). After months of what I can only call newborn hell, followed by months of crafting the three of us into a family, light is finally peeking through the fog. Maybe now that I’m back online a bit I will eventually talk about those early days, but they were dark and ugly (for me, not for you, hopefully) and I’m not sure how much I want to lift that heavy curtain again. We’ll see.