My Sugar House Life: Six month Harper and ten year Aidan

Yesterday my mom said to me, "So... is Harper sitting up on her own yet?," which made me realize I have done a TERRIBLE job keeping the blog up to date on Harper's milestones. And then I realized I've done an even worse job chronicling Aidan's updates here. In fact, I did an Aidan, Age 8 post and never followed up with an Aidan, Age 9 post. Hashtag parent fail.

Harper turned six months sometime a couple weeks ago. Robert and I disagree on the exact day. I think it was March 30th since she was born on September 30th and, if you count Sept. to Oct., Oct. to Nov., Nov. to Dec., and so on, doesn't that make perfect sense? Robert thinks her actual half-birthday is some other day because of months with 31 days. If you have strong feelings about how half-birthdays work, please share in the comments section below.

"A very happy half-birthday to me, to me..."

Anyway, here are the deets on Harper girl. She is currently a little ball of giggling, cooing, blue-eyed, chubby, grinning perfection. She sleeps from 7 pm to 7 am, and usually wakes up about twice a night. I feed her when she gets up in the night. Don't judge. When I put her to sleep at night, she rolls over, hugs her lovey, sighs, and makes my heart explode with joy. Harper is now sitting up on her own though she's still a bit wobbly. She rolls both directions but prefers rolling back to front. If you give her a hand to kick off of, she will scooch all around the room as if she's crawling.

"I'm strong, mama."

Harper tried food for the first time at 5 1/2 months old, and her first foods in chronological order were rice cereal, avocado, banana, sweet potato, peas, blueberries, and yogurt. So far she has loved everything she's tried. Once again, very different from her big brother. When you feed Harper, she growls in between bites like she wants you to hurry up. It's hilarious.

Harper takes three naps a day at semi-regular times: around 9:00, 12:30, and 4:00. She is easy to put to sleep so long as she's in her crib with the shades drawn and the white noise machine on. I'm overzealously protective of her sleep which causes me to get irrationally angry when Stan barks, Robert sneezes, or Aidan thunders up and down the stairs during Harper's nap.

Naked baby!!!

I still miss Harper when I'm at work. It has gotten better since the beginning, but I still miss her. Monday through Friday, I see her about three hours a day (7-8:30 am; 5:30-7:00 pm) not counting when she gets up in the night. It's hard, but at least the hours I spend with her, I'm super engaged since I don't want to take that time for granted.

Pumped milk with mama.

The jumperoo always gets smiles like this. Knowing what I know now, I would have paid $500 for this thing.

Harper has recently become a little flirt. Anytime someone shows her attention, she rewards them with huge, love-me smiles. This is especially true with Daddy and Aidan.

"Why, hello there!"

Aidan is ten and a half now and almost done with fourth grade. He has had an incredible last few weeks, though I don't really feel at liberty to give the details of his life on my blog anymore. I had a revelation the other day that in just a couple years, Aidan is going to be in middle school. His friends and/or enemies might Google him and find some embarrassing story or photo on my blog that would give them emotional ammunition over him. Aidan is almost the age where he needs to have some control over his digital identity. Luckily, I don't think Aidan's last name has ever been mentioned on the blog, but searching, including image searching, gets savvier all the time. So, while Aidan will still be on the blog (Nana would be indignant otherwise on his behalf), I'm going to try extra hard from here on out not to write anything that I think he or his peers would find embarrassing should they stumble across My Sugar House Life in a few years.

Proud of his Easter egg haul.

So... back to Aidan. He's doing well in school, he loves his little sister, he is all signed up for Robotics camp and Young Naturalists camp for several weeks this summer. He gets along well with Tiina and it's cute to see him interact with someone who is like a big sister to him. There was a funny moment the other day when Harper was in her jumperoo and Aidan was jumping in front of her to make her laugh. Tiina came behind Aidan and tickled him, causing him to crumple to the ground laughing. He then turned to Tiina and said, "Hey! Harper and I were having a moment!" There were so many things I loved about that moment. (Was that embarrassing? I can't tell. Man, this is hard.)

Aidan in a Kiss Lip Sync performance at school.

Comparing adjectives with the best of them.

Aidan will be 11 this summer and is now officially what I call a pre-tween. He has moments of swagger, a few emotional outbursts, he cares more about dressing and decorating his room a particular way. I think he gets more handsome all the time, but he is always working to mess that up by keeping his hair disheveled and his clothes a mess.

On his way to California

Two months ago, Aidan asked if he could be baptized, and started meeting with our pastor once a week to learn more about the Bible and his own beliefs. It was super cool to see him initiate something like that all on his own. Part of the motivation behind these spiritual efforts is that he is in the process of earning his Duty to God badge for Boy Scouts. His final project for the badge will be reading scripture in church in a couple weeks, and I can't wait to see how he does with that.