Scooter

It's official: she's mobile.

Eleanor is now kind of crawling, most definitely scooting, her way around. This means she will not simply sit up and look at the camera and be adorable anymore; she realizes if she's sitting, she is only seconds away from scooting, and immediately her hands and knees hit the floor. I tried to take pictures yesterday - they are all of her blurry forehead. She's also decided to stop practicing any other skills in favor of scooting. Babble? No. Scoot. Play? No. Scoot. Eat? No. Scoot. Sleep? No. Scoot.

How Eleanor Gets What She Wants (Another Computer Series)

Step 1: Gives a cute, but slightly pathetic face.

Step 2: Hits something. Hard.

Step 3: Looks adorable, and a little inquisitive
(like she might even be learning something),

once she has gotten what she wants.

Distractions

We were having a nice, contemplative photo-shoot during which
I was capturing the quiet stillness of a calm baby...

and then Augie came in:

The Latest

This week, Ellie has been perfecting the art of clawing her little way up things. Her favorite target, my standing leg, particularly if I'm in soft yoga pants that allow her to really dig in those little baby fingers and get a good grip.
Her second favorite thing to claw her way up is the ottoman - anything to get to that computer!
There are so many tiny buttons to push! While it doesn't make as many fun noises as the piano when she pushes the keys, she apparently finds the screen, which changes as she bangs away on the keyboard, mesmerizing.

The Big One

The goal when taking pictures of Eleanor is to capture "the big one": the smile that is so big, her nose wrinkles and her usually wide blue eyes turn to little slits.

Success!

6 Month Stats

At 6 months old, Eleanor:

• is 27 1/2 inches long (90-95 percentile) and 20 lbs even (above 95 percentile) - I know, I know
  
• eats 8 oz from a bottle at a time, 4 times a day (typically around 6:30, 10:30, 2:30 and 6:30), which is not that much! I don't know why she is so huge.
  
• can sit completely unassisted for as long as she wants and doesn't topple over anymore
• reaches for toys, grabs them with either hand, and can move them from one hand to another
• makes all sorts of squealing, mumbling, laughing and babbling noises, the newest being "mmm hmmm muummuum"
• has started rocking back and forth on her hands and knees and sometimes lunges forward from that position (crawling will be soon!)
• takes two naps (at 9am and 1pm), each lasting about an hour and a half
• has a bedtime routine every night that includes a few songs from Daddy on the guitar, followed by a bath, a bottle, a song by Mommy and rocking for 10 minutes (she gets the song and 10 minutes of rocking before each nap too and usually goes down asleep, but sometimes just goes down drowsy, talks to herself for a minute, and THEN falls asleep)
  
• goes to bed between 6:30 and 7, wakes up between 6 and 6:30
  

6 Month Portraits

Who needs a studio?
I have a lovely navy fleece blanket that does the trick just fine!