6 Month Anniversary

A lot happens in 6 months.  I handed a very sick baby over to a team of medical professionals for a life saving, 10-hour surgery.  Yet, only 6 months before that, Nahum and I had a healthy baby girl, for all we knew.  I was getting ready to go back to work and start Shayna in daycare.  6 months can sure be a long journey.  Thankfully these last six have been a beautiful journey with a vibrant, strong, independent little Shayna just bursting with life.

We had a magical water weekend over all 3 days.  It started with a little hike at Mountain Lake with friends down to the water (it’s a “little” low) where Shayna and I went swimming.  It was a bit chilly but Shayna loved splashing, stomping, and wading in to her chest.  Sunday I set up her kiddie pool which was shallower but colder.  She climbed in and out, stomped, splashed and laughed until I decided she was getting too cold.  Later that evening we had a thunderstorm pass over so I took Shayna out in the rain in just her little onesie.  She held her hands up as the rain hit her and just grinned at me then took off at a trot down the driveway pausing to look back to grin at me or stomp in the water.  Yesterday we met friends at Claytor Lake (a damn on the New River) for some swim beach action.  Shayna was so excited by the boys swimming around that she tried to join them.  (She thinks holding my hand will get her anywhere.)  She would shriek and splash whenever they got near.  Today we continued the swimming trend and met another friend and her 15-monther at the Blacksburg Aquatics Center for some play.  They’ve got a really wide ramp and shallow swim area leading to the lap pool where the kids can play.  Shayna loved walking up and down the ramp.  When she held the hand rail I didn’t mind so much as she could keep herself from going under, but she’d just head out down the middle of the ramp at times with no concern for the fact that at armpit depth she couldn’t keep her head up if she fell.  Needless to say, she did go under a few times.  She also fussed every single time we had to leave the water.

She has a couple other recent achievements that I’m quite proud of.  She can go down the little and big slides at the parks by herself.  She does it feet first on her belly.  This helps both in not losing control on the way down (she’s already laying down) and she can get off the bottom of the slide easily too.  The other amazing thing she did was say, “hep, hep,” without prompting this morning for me to come help her go peepee in the potty.  That's the first pre-pee, verbal communication I've ever gotten.

My fun was of course all those things with Shayna but I also had a swim lesson on Friday with a friend and a good coach.  It was wonderful to get some simple, helpful guidance on all 4 strokes.

Last Thursday, Shayna and Becca play in the rain.

Becca is teaching Shayna to stomp in the puddles. She caught on right away and has turned bath time into a little bathroom hurricane.

Shayna checks out the hail pieces we grabbed for her.  It was her first hail experience.  She melted them in her fist and ate other pieces.

Shayna, Patricia, Hannah and Fredrick splash around in Mountain Lake on Saturday.

Shayna's 2nd dip was al-natural with some swimming.  Here she is hiking back on the docks that used to float.  Check out her awesome new shoes.

Relaxing with Aba in the shade and watching the boys swim at Smith Mountain Lake.