half-a-year old

Already! I know, craziness eh.

Leona at her 6 month mark:

• Hardly ever cries any more, except if hungry and we're driving in the car and not able to pull over right away, and sometimes fusses fighting sleep (this is huge folks, HUGE!)
• Loves to sit (can sit on her own very stably, though cannot sit up by herself)

[As she was on a sloping table here - new to her - Judge's hands were on her, 

and good thing as he just barely caught her before her face would have hit the smooth stone~]

• Loves to stand (can stand holding onto something - but of course not yet stand up by herself)

• For the above two, originally we were going to go 'natural developmental progression only' - meaning she'd do all this on her own as she developed the skills when she was ready (same as tummy time - which she does now that she can roll but we only did randomly for about 10 seconds every once and a while before) - but we capitulated to a certain degree ;)

• Smooth roller to the right, not so smooth to the left
• Loves her Leona elephant (made by her auntie Kate)
• Loves to go on walks / be outside looking at the world and everything in it
• Has recently started to smile hard...like crinkle-her-nose hard
• Loves to play with little plastic bags that our teas come in (yes, under supervision, of course)
• Is teething at the moment (we believe) - saw a hint of white off to her bottom-left side, but still unsure at the moment (there are no other pearly whites yet)
• Between around 7:30pm and 6am she sleeps all the way through - with two snacking breaks before midnight, and every 1 or 2 hours after that (the past few weeks at least)
• Stays awake for about 1.5 to 2 hour stretches during the day, then sleeps 1 sleep cycle
• If falling asleep when out on a walk still does her 'pre-sleep-discussion' sounds
• Loves to splash in the tub
• Does not like the feel of standing on grass - the ever eager stander-upper held the soles of her feet tight against each other in order to avoid the prickly greens a second time
• Has started to show clearly if she wants someone to hold her (slight wave and stretching of her arms)
• Has started to miss me when I'm not in the room - when I come back she will smile and laugh for about 1 sec and then semi-cry and wave-stretch her arms towards me
• Has become more stingy with her smiles (with strangers especially, and not-mom-or-dads in general as well)
• Still chews on her fingers - does not self-soothe by sucking them though
• Does not take pacifiers to self-soothe (we tried for the first time a couple weeks ago as we've given up on the finger-sucking hope) but has recently started to chew on them as well (we keep giving them to her to grab and play with, hoping on the side that she will start sucking on them...since as she doesn't suck on her fingers it would be helpful for her to have something to self-soothe, for when I start working in Jan)
• Will start her food journey in the next few days most likely
• When I am diligent enough she can have no dirty diapers for the whole day (happened once so far :P) - meaning of course it's all gone in the potty or sink
• Says / cry-complains 'nene' when she wants to nurse (when she's hungry or tired)...nene I know is a common sound for her age, but also just happens to be what they call milk (for babies) here in Taiwan
• Eyes are pretty much brown
• No such thing as 'still' time unless she's sleeping (takes after her papa)
• Still has very little hair
• Height and weight stats uncertain at this time

I'm sure there's more to share - she's such a hoot! And very expressive facially~

Few more pictures from our outing today:

.