Last Sunday Mia Lynn turned 6 months old.

It is hard to believe she has grown and changed so much in the past 6 months, from when we brought home this tiny fragile little being and introduced her to the zoo.  Other days it seems we have been parents for at least 6 YEARS – the days of being just a couple have long faded.   Still, we’ve managed to keep up our every-other-week date nights while acclimating to the fact that it now takes us two hours to get ready to run to the store for another can of formula.

Every week seems to bring tiny new development that have added up so fast we now have a strong little girl who loves to grab handfuls of Dixie, eats baby food apples with gusto and can hold a book and flip the pages all by herself.  As I write this Mia is watching her baby Spanish lesson (actually this just gives me an excuse to learn it myself), yelling out her enthusiasm for las bebe’s while chewing on the corner of her “Mommy Loves” book.   She is so close to crawling (forward!) that Bonnie finally broke down and made a run to Home Depot for baby-proofing supplies.  A friend and neighbor with a little girl a few months older advised us that we only need to baby-proof in 6 inch increments from the floor up as they progress, so we’ll start with everything Dixie height or less.

Two weekends ago I took Mia to visit her Gramma and Grandpa and Uncle Mark in Bend.  She also met our friend Tamra for the first time, and got lots of cuddles from Uncles Norman and Dave.  The big event though was stopping by Gramma’s quilting group (BJ’s Quilting Store’s “Basket Cases.”)  Imagine being cooed and fussed over by a dozen professional grandmothers!  Their nickname for Mia from seeing her pictures is “The Hair” – so we walked into the room to shouts of “The Hair is here!  The Hair is here!”  I can visualize the therapy bill now. 

Speaking of The Hair, Bonnie’s new nickname for our beautiful baby girl is “Mia-Chia.” Aka Mia the Chia Pet.  Yes, her hair continues to grow.  And grow.  At least it has made the curve up and over her head, past the pompadour stage and now lays in ruffs and ringlets in various directions, with a few select natty spots in the back.  I took her to my own hair stylist for a consultation who assured me that “everyone has cowlicks.”  Really?  But one GIANT cowlick?