Many milestones have passed in the life of our young daughter. This weekend she eclipsed six months on the rock. Happy Half Birthday, Hadley! This came on the heels of her mother’s real birthday, as Ali logged another year a couple of weeks ago. Both days were heralded with small celebrations, although Ali’s day was absorbed a bit by the Patriot’s collapse.

Hadley’s gibberish chatter is reaching new sophistication. She has now taken to repeating things like, “Ah-boo,” “Mmm-bah,” as well as a raspberry-like elephant lip buzzing, occasionally accompanied with some saliva. She has also become quite drooly of late. Teeth are certainly in the offing. She is getting better and better at manipulating her little mitts and fingers, getting pretty grabby when her thumb and forefinger are not working her gums. Now she can get her Nuk back into her mouth with some real consistency, although she would rather gnaw on it in various positions.

Also, she is even beginning to sit by herself in short spurts before realizing what she is doing and tipping over onto her side. Negotiating all that head weight is still a challenge for her. Ali has been hovering closely to catch the baby if Hadley gets too distracted and discovers that she is not quite strong enough yet.

On the locomotive front the kid is awfully close to crawling. She has been rolling everywhere for the last couple of weeks and finding her way into all kinds of things. She has very little interest in staying on her back any more, so she has been racking up the tummy time minutes. It has all been good practice for the eventual crawling. She is now at the point where she hoists her hips up off the ground and accidentally scoots backwards. She hasn’t sorted out all the moves in sequence yet, but a baby on the move is nigh.