Six Months Old & First Mother's Day

My baby is 6 months old!!!! I can't believe how fast the time has gone... We celebrated her half birthday by meeting up with Tina at the Natural History Museum. We saw the hope diamond, the evolution exhibit, and best of all... the butterfly room! I didn't even know it was there. It is a separate exhibit that you pay to see, but it is a room full of butterflies from all over the world that just fly around you in the open. One even landed in Tina's hair! It was really cool and I think Scarlett liked it. She was watching them fly around for at least part of the time. We then went to lunch at Jaleo and got drinks at Rosa Mexicana. Scarlett was very popular all day long. Strangers kept making comments about her, wanting to hold her, and talking about how amazing it was that she hadn't cried or fussed at lunch. Most importantly, Scarlett is officially the only baby that Tina has ever liked. We consider it a big win!

Today was my first mother's day -- officially anyway! Paul and Scarlett gave me a menu of activities for the day. It started with breakfast in bed. We had a picnic at Iwo Jima and walked around a bit. We saw Arlington Cemetery, Iwo Jima, and the gift from the Netherlands (an odd statue type thing). We took a family nap and a pretty relaxing day in general. We sort of ran out of time, so I've got an IOU for a massage. :) When we got back from the picnic, a beautiful vase full of white and pink roses was waiting for me from my parents. It's good to be pampered!

My birthday was on Thursday, so we did a little bit of celebrating then as well. We picked Scarlett up from daycare, stopped at our local Thursday beer tasting (we go almost every week) and then walked to Clarendon to meet Claire and Kyle for dinner. When we got back, a dozen Georgetown cupcakes were waiting for me from Jacy... Delicious but definitely not going to help me on my quest to drop the baby weight! On Friday we walked to Virginia Hospital Center to see Tracy and Dan. Dan looked really good and we brought them each a cupcake. Dan is growing a beard which seemed to confuse Scarlett... she actually started crying after she felt it!

The big thing next week is that Paul and I have to go to Cape Cod for Corinne's wedding. We will be leaving Scarlett with Paul's aunt Cathy for the weekend. I know she will be in great hands, but I'm not sure I'll be able to handle almost 4 days without her! She is REALLY close to crawling, so I'm worried that we're going to miss her first "steps". Who knows, maybe she will start crawling before we leave!