Dear Zoe,
We just got back a couple of weeks ago from our fourth yearly anniversary trip with Dave & Rose and Urn & Kat. We went to the Running Y Ranch in Klamath Falls, and you had a lot of fun playing with your cousins Milo and Oskar every day. You and Milo, as usual, were fascinated with each other, and spent a lot of time hanging out together on the play mat on the living room floor watching Oskar run around. We visited Crater Lake, took you spelunking in the caves at the Lava Beds National Monument, and went to the Oregon Vortex and Mystery House. You were perfectly happy to hang out in the front pack for all of that, except that we forgot that going to Crater Lake means driving up a mountain, so you were screaming the whole way up due to the elevation changes — but that’s a story for another time.

I will mention, however, that we took you swimming for the first time. Your mom bought you a really cute little strawberry bikini and a green terrycloth pullover (she tends to approach any outing with you as an opportunity to dress you up). We took you into the indoor pool at the ranch, and you really weren’t sure what to make of the whole thing. It was really hot, and incredibly loud, and you just sat in my lap looking confused. Still, once your mom got you in the water, you watched Milo splashing and eventually figured out that patting and slapping the water was fun.

One of my favorite things about you is how relentlessly cheerful you are. Oh, sure, you have your moments, like any baby, where you cry and scream, but those are certainly the exception to the rule. Most of the time, you will only fuss and cry a little if we’re trying to get you to do something you don’t want to do (like laying you down to go to sleep) or to let us know that you need something (like if you need a diaper change, or you’re tired of playing and need to be carried for awhile). When we give you what you want, you smile and coo and nuzzle and let us know that you’re happy. Frequently, your mom and I will be watching TV while she nurses you, and I’ll look over to see you lying there staring at me. When I make eye contact, you give me a big smile and then immediately look away. I’m afraid you’re going to be a big flirt when you grow up.

You love playing games with us. We’ll lay you on your back and then get in your face and make funny noises or goofy faces and you’ll jam your fingers in your mouth and laugh and kick your legs happily. You’ve recently started getting ticklish, and if the mood is right, you love it when I tickle your ribs or blow a zerbert on your belly.

When you first figured out you could put your hands in your mouth, you definitely spent less time talking, but I’m happy to say that lately you’ve become very interested in vocalizing again. You don’t make word sounds yet, but you love vowels and will happily lie there exploring all the variations on “oooh” and “aaaaah” and you’re even starting to try to blow raspberries, which I’ve been trying to teach you since day one. You love it when we talk back to you, whether it’s with words or just repeating back the sounds you’ve been making, but you also happily spend time talking to yourself. When we go for walks and your mom wears you in the front pack, we can always tell when you’re particularly happy, because you suddenly start babbling to yourself and letting out little squawks of joy.

One change that I’m grateful for is that you seem to have gotten over your grandpa terror. There was a month or two where even the sight of either of your grandfathers would cause you to immediately burst into tears. Thankfully, you’re now just as happy to see them as anyone else, and you love to spend time bouncing on their knees, or letting them read to you. You don’t seem to have any fear of anyone else, and you love being fussed over (even if you do tend to flirt a bit by looking away as soon as you’ve got someone’s attention). We have noticed that you love guys. While we were on vacation, you had a great time with everyone, but if any of the guys started talking, you were very attentive.

Your sense of humor is also developing. For the most part, you’re still a big fan of physical comedy like tickling or zerberts, but a recent favorite of yours is when I rock my head from side to side. For some reason, you think this is hilarious, and you crack up every time I do it. You still love the feel of wind on your face and laugh when we take you for a walk, but the thing that makes you laugh the most is when you suddenly catch a glimpse of one of us and you weren’t expecting it. For example if your mom is carrying you up the stairs and I’m walking behind you two, as she turns the corner, you’ll see me and laugh. Or I’ll be holding you as your mom gets ready to go somewhere, and when she walks into the room you see her and coo and laugh.

I mentioned last month that you were just starting to teethe, and this month there’s no doubt about it – you’re teething. You constantly have your fingers or toes in your mouth, and if anyone holds out their hand to you, you will immediately grab their fingers and guide them into your mouth so you can chomp on them. For the most part, it doesn’t seem to bother you too badly, other than wanting to chew on everything you can fit in your mouth, but every now and then when the pain seems to bother you too much, your mom has some teething gel that she rubs on your gums, and that seems to help.

Did I say toes? Oh, yes. You’ve recently figured out that you can grab your own feet, and it’s a constant thing now. If we lay you down on your back, you will almost immediately grab your feet – your legs sticking out straight, like you’re doing the splits. Usually your diaper is too bulky to let you chew on your toes, but whenever we go to change you, the first thing you do it maneuver that foot up to your mouth and happily chew on your own big toe.

The other big development is that you’ve started scooting around. When you’re on your tummy, you pedal with your feet and can move yourself backwards a little bit, but when you’re on your back, you can really get going. You plant your feet on the ground, and arch your bottom into the air like you’re doing the bridge stretch, and then you scoot your head along the ground, landing further up then you were. You can really only go in one direction for now, which is nice, but it also means that when we put you in your crib, if you’re not totally asleep, you tend to wake yourself up by scooting up until your head is pressed against the headboard (we had to go buy some bumpers today, in fact). You’re not too interested in rolling over yet… although we have seen you do it from front to back, we’re starting to wonder if that was a fluke. When you’re on your back and roll to your side, you just grab your feet and play with them and that’s as far as you get. This is fine since you’ve apparently decided “who needs to roll when you can shoot straight backwards to get somewhere?”

You generally seem pleased with this newfound mobility, but you get very frustrated when it doesn’t work the way you expect it to, or when you pin yourself into a corner and can’t go any further. Over the next few months, I’m sure this will evolve into full-fledged crawling (you’re already starting to lift up onto your knees sometimes during tummy time), but for now the scooting is all you can do. Your cousin Milo does a sort of army crawl, where he reaches out with his huge arms and drags himself forward, and he can sit up by himself, so I’m hopeful that you’ll follow suit soon.

Of course, the funniest thing for me is that you’ve recently become much more coordinated at grabbing things, and you’ve also become fascinated with faces, so if I get my face anywhere near yours, you reach out and grab my beard. I keep it cut pretty short, so there’s not much to hold, so you sort of just play with my facial hair until I laugh or open my mouth to say something, and then you immediately stick your fingers into my mouth. I figure it’s just another way that you’re exploring how people move their lips to make sounds, but it’s funny because a lot of our conversations now tend to go like “Hi baby girRGHL BARGLE ZARF.” as I try to talk around your fingers.

You usually wake up a little after I leave, around 7:30am. You and your mom get dressed, and then go into the basement where you play on your playmat while your mom eats breakfast. Then she watches television while she nurses you, and you usually fall asleep and have your morning nap for about an hour. When you wake up, the two of you go out somewhere — running errands, going to the mommy group, or just hanging out at the coffee shop — until early afternoon, when you’re back in the basement for another nursing and nap session. Around 3 or 4pm, your mom tries to get outside for a walk with you, but sometimes she stays in the basement and watches “What Not To Wear” instead.

At around 6:30pm, I get home from work and usually I play with you while your mom finishes making dinner. Lately, you’ve been having trouble falling asleep on your own, so we’ve been letting you nurse to sleep in the basement while we watch a movie, but our goal is to get back into the habit of putting you down in your crib. Regardless, by about 8pm, you’re usually asleep in your room, and you tend to stay there for the next several hours. Lately, maybe due to the teething, you’ve been waking up several times a night, every three or four hours. Hopefully, that’s just a phase. Finally, some time around 4 or 5am, you wake up hungry, and your mom brings you to bed, where you fall back asleep nursing between us. In the morning, you’re usually asleep, but sometimes you’re awake enough to give me a big smile as I get dressed and ready to go to work, which really makes my morning.

I love you, baby girl, and I can hardly believe that you’re already six months old!
– Your Dad