One Half Year

Dear Sprout,
Today you are six months old. It’s a day I’ve been looking forward to for…well, six months. Let’s face it, the last half of 2008 has not been an easy one. Admittedly, I am not, nor will I ever be a baby person. As much as I hate to admit this, with your brother everything was new and surprising. Even though it was a struggle, the day to day of watching a human learn how to interact with the world was intriguing. Though I’ve tried to approach fathering an infant for the second time with the same degree of fascination, it’s been difficult. And let’s be honest, you haven’t made things easy either. Need I remind you about the whole refusing to take a bottle thing? This doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. I’m just saying that I’m not really great at being a dad to a baby. I try really hard. But trust me, I’ll be a lot more fun in another six months.

Though you have been a major presence in my life, I know that I haven’t written much about you here. I guess it’s a result of that second child syndrome that I promised you that I was going to try to avoid. Though I’ve made sure that I’ve taken lots of video of your mom takes enough pictures to shut down Flickr’s server, there haven’t been a lot of anecdotes to convey. It’s actually been easier to define you by what you won’t do than by what you are doing.

But all of that is changing rapidly. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the holidays, which I think has been good for both of us. You’re becoming wildly interested in the world around you. I love watching you lean forward you can see all of the action. It looks like you’re doing crunches. Soon you’ll be able to sit up by yourself and you’ll find that the world becomes a very different place. You’ll start getting what we grownups call “interactive”. I’ll build a tower of blocks, you’ll knock it down. Things like that. It’ll be awesome.

So for now, just keep doing what you’ve been doing. I’ll continue to feed you new solid foods (roasted carrots are coming up next), play with you and tickle you. You keep getting closer to sleeping through the night. And don’t ever stop being generous with that big, gummy smile of yours. It’s by far my favorite thing about you. Notice the way you charm everybody you meet with it? That’s a great skill to have.

Oh, and thanks for being patient with your brother when he “rides” you by sitting on the back of your legs. This is all been new for him too. He totally digs you and is really excited for the days when he can play with you. I know you are too because you can’t stop staring at him.

All my love baby girl,
Daddy

P.S. Thank you for finally drinking milk from a sippy cup. You have no idea what this means to mom (and to me).