so much catching up to do!

i just took 3 photos from every month that was left uncovered...we have millions of pics by now, of course, in 5000 places, so it's nice even for me to do a throwback (to july, lol) type of thing - it feels like at least 3 years ago. this is the small baby in her brand new chair, at 6 months, trying one of her first solids - it was butternut squash or sweet potato.
it's been more or less the same with the solids from the start - i am actually scared of feeding her!(of course). i haven't been super adventurous, mostly food out of jars - she likes weird things like simple meat paste, and pear with broccoli...not so much fruits, except bananas. cereals were a relatively late accepted item. beside that, egg yolk and mashed potato. whatever she threw up (avocado) i didn't give her again. ugh i know it's not much of a solids introduction, but i'm still focused on her getting enough milk per day. at least now i'm giving her 3 solid meals per day, it was a very gradual process.

sleep! at the stage in the photo (before 6 months), she had just started rolling, and was waking herself up by rolling on her tummy in her sleep. at some point, we just moved her to sleep from her crib to the bed...huge mistake probably, cause now she won't sleep in the crib any more at all - it's just for playing in. but also, she used to not nap almost at all during the day, and now she has 2-3 naps at pretty predictable times. overall, it's not bad, except i have to stay always next to her when she's asleep, in case she decides to wake up and crawl/fall out of bed

omg, it was so warm - making friends with tina is always in progress. she has to learn to stay calm and pet her instead of  yelling and grabbing at her. tina is still very exciting though. and the interest is mutual: tina wants to capture the attention we give rada by sleeping in her crib, on the feeding tray etc. also, when rada sleeps, she comes and smells her head. but when rada is awake...beware!

august was when we stopped sleeping on the kitchen futon in the morning, because rada took a tumble off it by climbing her pillow barrier and reaching for some cables. major scare, visit to the hospital, things seem to be fine but ugh. this is what happens when your kid starts crawling but is still too dumb to know where she's crawling

proudly eating anything but milk since january 2018. she actually went through a stage where she kept her mouth open/jaw dropped for minutes at a time. no idea why, and it only lasted a couple of weeks. this is also around the time when i stopped crying about her eating; mostly because she started eating more formula, though i will never understand why and how. at this point i was only breastfeeding at night, and i know i worried about how that transition would happen, but it was slow and uneventful: over a few nights we just went from breastfeed to bottle feed at night. and i do go to weigh in every month and she's been still putting on weight, so yay

finally sitting, for 1-2 seconds at one time. since she stopped sleeping in the crib, she's been using it as a playground, so there are toys strewn everywhere. the way she plays with them though is, she throws them on the floor for me to pick up. sometimes she may be convinced into some sort of back-and-forth with a sock. yes, socks and hats have toy status in this house - as soon as i put them on her she starts trying to take them off. 

bored with toys (the blanket was being used mostly for peekaboo) and trying her hand at some of my objects. also notice the assortment of books that we got, mostly from street libraries, and which are mostly in french (though we have english and romanian ones too). the only problem is that this kid uses books exclusively as chewing material. 

standing up! she walks around the crib holding on to the bars, and more recently has started to let go a bit and stand for 2 seconds before she falls down on her butt and laughs. in the beginning (start of september) i was worried about her falling, cause she didn't know how to land on her butt and was hitting her head, but she learned. this coincided with her starting to babble, first ta-ta-ta then other consonant strings (latest is va-va-va)...no huge developments since then, just building up on these skills. 

weekend walk in the park! this is end of september and marks a month since b. has been a serious person with a serious job and i've been an actual full-time stay-at-home mum. it's so hard but we survive. as long as the baby survives too, we'll keep going one day at a time. colder weather means i get to play again with baby's wardrobe and try on her all the hats that she can't stand.

more park, more hat, and no shoes!! in my defense, she had on a pyjama and 2 pairs of socks, and judging by my clothes it wasn't that very cold. but then she caught a cold, so, hm. but in the meantime now we have 4 (!) pairs of shoes for her, outstanding for a kid who doesn't walk yet.

october, the weather turned nasty, and my baby got sick :(. she had a cold for about 2 weeks: cough (terrible, especially in the morning), throwing up both solids and milk multiple times (the milk might have been gagging after medicine), just a bit of fever in the beginning, but a whole lot of stuffed nose. she couldn't sleep properly because she couldn't breathe well lying down, so she slept on my shoulder for 4 nights. here she's taking a weekend nap with her father (during which i'd like to think i did something useful)

 i had to put this scarf from my mum on her as a headscarf! i just had to! just look at her adorable romanian peasant face! of course she hates the scarf too, and it was a struggle to take the photo before she yanked it off