Dear 6 Month Old Asher,

Dear 6 Month Old Asher, You are my baby. Everything about you--your bobbing bald head, your kissable thigh rolls, your sweet little cooing noises--just exudes baby-ness. And you give the best baby snuggles.

For the first week as a 6-month-old, you'd sit up by yourself for a grand total of about .02 seconds and then you'd topple over like a little Humpty Dumpty. Then, on Friday, August 9th, we were at storytime at the library and I sat you down...and you just stayed sitting there for one second...ten seconds...one minute...a couple minutes...I was freaking out! I went all my-baby-is-a-genius! crazy and took like a billion pictures of you while all the other mommas and kiddos tried not to laugh at me. "THIS IS THE FIRST TIME HE'S SITTING UP ON HIS OWN!!" I kept exclaiming. I was just so proud of you. I mean, for 6 straight months all you wanted to do was be held 24/7, and then all of the sudden, there you were just sitting on your own like a champ.

You still love to be held, though. And let's be honest, I adore holding you. You babble "mamamama" when you're upset and "dadadada" when you're excited--sounds about right. (How come I never get to be the cool parent?!) Seriously though, you get so hyped up when you see your Daddy. He just looks at you, and your entire face lights up.

That is our favorite thing about you, Asher, you smile with your whole face...from your sparkling eyes all the way down to your darling little chin. Everyone comments on your sweet smile.

Your name means "happy" and you have been honoring that name! You are happiest when someone is giving you their undivided attention and talking to you, when you sit by yourself and watch Adam run around like a crazy person, and when you are eating. You LOVE food. You breastfeed about every 3 hours or so throughout the day (and non-stop throughout the night...), and we started you on solids at 5.5 months. Your first food was pureed pear and your favorite food is avocado. You get pretty aggressive when you're eating and start kicking and shrieking if we don't feed you fast enough. We can't help but laugh.

There's this other little mood you get in that we don't have to describe really...we call it your "meerkat mood." It's when you lock your legs and just want be held in the standing position, and you stand so tall and straight (like a little meerkat) and you just look around the room and you're like, "I'm not tired. Don't even try to put me to sleep." (But the truth is you are actually very tired but you don't want to admit it). Oh Asher, I am just smitten with you. You are sitting in my lap as I type this. I'm resting my chin against your bald baby head and you are trying with all your might to reach (and presumably try to eat) the keyboard. You light up my life, sweet boy. I love you!