We can't believe how time is flying by and how old our baby girl is already. At her 6 month well baby visit she was in the 50th percentile for weight (thanks to mommy's milk shakes), and 10th percentile for height. She sleeps great, usually goes down between 5pm and 7pm and sleeps until 4:30am when she wakes up with the rest of the Muslim population of Indonesia for morning prayers. It is like clockwork so I think she must hear the call to prayer from the mosque down the street. She has an early breakfast and then goes back down for a snooze until 6:30am or 7am when the boys wake up and then it just becomes a losing battle for all of us (me, tanner, and audrey) to try to get some shut eye with those boys whooping and hollering throughout the house.She will roll across the room, and is doing the rocking back and forth thing on her knees with her little bottom in the air, but mostly she just ends up on her tummy boogie boarding on the carpet. She laughs when we play peek a boo and yells really loud when I try to get her to say Ma Ma (not sure what that means, but hopefully she is actually trying out her voice, rather than actually yelling at me...otherwise, we are in for a rough road ahead together ;-) )
Last week, she started to eat solids. I hate starting solids...so messy. Nursing...so clean and easy. But we realized after numerous nights of her sitting in her Bumbo at the end of the table yelling at us and reaching for any food that might be within her grasp that maybe she might want a taste of something different. Indonesians start their babies on solids really early, and anyone who has asked think I am lying when I tell them she is that gundut (chubby) from just breast milk.
She looks like Clark and makes faces like Andrew. We call her Audrey, Audi, Clarkina (thanks Trish--all the teachers at Clark's school call her that now), Pinky (okay, I admit it, she wears a lot...A LOT of pink), and Gundut (see above and pronounce like Goon-doot). I also like Lucu (pronounced Loochoo). It means cute and funny. Gundut and Lucu were two of the first words I learned in Indonesian because that is what every stranger who sees her says to me...and they do this while squeezing her cheeks together and some just full on take her away from me and hold her. Every once in a while I get someone who looks like they are looking or talking in a disapproving way, and it was really disconcerting at first, but now I know that it is when she is sucking on her left fist. It is a big No No in Indonesia to use your left hand for anything...it is considered unclean (Islam). Some strangers full on will try to pry her hand out of her mouth, and it cracks me up because there is NO WAY that fist is going to come out once it is in there. So they struggle for a minute and then give up and walk away muttering. I think it is funny, after all I am a lefty.
Our favorite game to play with her right now is "The Falling Audrey Game!" We all sit around on the bed, and sit her upright in the middle...and we wait...for her to topple over to one side or the other. She can sit up, but it only lasts for a little bit and inevitably she decides to reach out to one of us surrounding her and she topples over. The boys think it is the funniest thing EVER! We will get it on video here soon. Everyone loves her, and sometimes our driver all but demands a turn to swing with her outside, and then I watch as the guards, gardeners, and neighbors all stop by to say hi to her. She will go to anyone at anytime, unless it's time to eat.
Sometimes she seems to be in a very serious or pensive mood and I whisper to her "what are we going to do about these BOYS?" and one time, right after I said something to that effect to her, Andrew walked by and made a crazy face at her and she reached out and grabbed his hair and pulled....hard.
Right on sista.
