One Half Year with the Goddess

Athena Lee turned six months old this week. Can half a year really have passed since she was born? Can she really have been with us for ONLY half a year? How is it that I feel like she just got here and has always been here?

Behold her in her full glory:



One thing is sure: our little goddess is universally worshipped in this household. As hard as it was to believe before she was born, the words of the multiple-time parents that I heard while I was pregnant have proved true: it really is possible to adore another human with the same wonder and intensity as I love my firstborn. Perhaps more amazing is the way Mazie has embraced her little sister without any hesitation or reservations. For our little performer and the star of our show for the past three years to share the spotlight so eagerly has been quite impressive... "Big Sister" seems to be the role she was born to play.

Meanwhile, Athena's repertoire continues to expand... she sits up very steadily, seems to have good hand-eye coordination for grabbing toys and playing with them, and can move around a bit on her belly. She's also trying out lots of new foods... see footage below for one unusual recent addition to her diet.


In many ways, Athena is very similar to Mazie at this age... we've lucked out with another incredibly sweet and good-natured, smiley, calm, and social baby. Sleeping, which was never her sister's strong suit, is a bit of a mixed bag for Thenes, too. We've been trying to get her on a more consistent napping schedule but her sleep still varies a lot from day to day, and she's nowhere close to sleeping through the night, still getting up every 2-3 hours at night. Despite all this, I'd actually say that she's a (comparatively) good sleeper, and that we're all getting pretty good sleep! For one thing, she GOES to sleep well... whereas Mazie always need to be nursed down by me, or worn down in the Ergo, or driven down in the car, Athena actually lets me or Caleb or Courtney or my mom PUT her down in her crib. When she's at the right stage of sleepiness, she'll suck on a pacifier and put herself to sleep. So at night she and Mazie both go to bed in the room they're sharing, and Athena sleeps for a few hours there, which gives Caleb and I some time to relax together. If she wakes up before we've gone to bed, it's usually pretty easy to put her back to sleep in her crib. If she wakes up after we've gone to bed, we bring her into bed with us and she spends the rest of the night there with us, waking up to nurse and going right back to sleep. As a second time Mom, I hardly wake up when I have to feed her, and she eats quickly without fussing, so I end up feeling like we're all well rested. Mazie still comes into our bed most nights, too, so we wake up in a happy family bed. So it's working okay for us for now!