six months old

On Tuesday, August 26, Anastasia had her six-month pediatric visit. Her stats:

* weight: 15.3 lbs (38%...still skinny)
* height: 26.98 in. (88%)
* head circumference: 17.3 in. (88%)

Although I don't know why they always measure the head circumference. To make sure her brain is growing, perhaps? But I knew that.

In other news, today (August 30), she tried her first solid food. I can't say why I hesitated to let her try solid food until now; I just didn't feel ready for it. Maybe the same reason I didn't give her a pacifier for such a long time; I just love nursing her so much and don't want anything to interfere with that in any way. But today my mom was down to visit, so we thought we'd give her a little avocado to try it.

Except the avocados which we'd bought for that purpose (all right, it was a week ago, but still) had already gone bad.

Fortunately, we had some banana as well, so we decided to try that instead.

However, it wasn't much of a success. I mushed a little bit of banana on my palm and held it out for her to examine. She studied it thoughtfully for several minutes before dipping her fingers in it and stuffing her hand in her mouth. We weren't sure if she was actually getting any banana in her mouth, since she seemed to be putting a different part of her hand in her mouth than the part that had banana on it. Evidently Anastasia had the same concern, because after a few of these attempts she abandoned her hand entirely. She opened her mouth wide and lunged it at my open hand, where the banana rested invitingly. That enabled her to get a pretty significant mouthful.

She then sat up and mouthed it experimentally. For a minute it seemed like she was quite pleased with herself, but then she made a horrible face and started coughing and gagging. She was clearly still breathing fine, so we weren't worried, but she didn't seem very pleased.

I figured she was probably done with solids for now, but apparently the lure of the banana was just too much to resist, because a minute later she again plunged open-mouthed toward it. But again, it caused her to cough and gag; I guess she was gulping up more than she could chew! This time she started protesting and crying, so we picked her up, patted her back a bit to make sure nothing was stuck, washed her off, and nursed her.

Which made her much, much happier. She kept pausing while nursing to look up at me reprovingly. "Now, this is food, Mom!" she seemed to be saying. "I don't know what you were thinking with that banana stuff! This is the real thing. This is all I need." And with these thoughts apparently on her mind, she drifted happily off to sleep.

So much for growing up too fast. Deep down, I'm rather pleased. We'll try again in a week or so and see if she likes it better then.