My new site is up and running! Please visit Hearts into Home to see where I’ll be posting from now on.

Dear friends and readers,

This site has taken many forms over the years.

It has followed me through the time I lived in Toronto as a single gal.

It has followed me through bad boyfriends.

It has followed me as I met Graham and as we decided to make a go of this life we have together.

It has been here when we decided to renovate our home.

It has been here when we decided to make the two of us into the three of us.

Now that the three of us are a family, it’s time to move on to a new space.

I thank each and every one of you for visiting this website, and for caring about me and my family.

I’m grateful for the friends and opportunities it has brought me.

I hope you’ll join me in my new space when it is finally up and running.

Amy.

Nate, you’re six months old today. For the first time a new month seems to be really significant. I’m the mother of a six month old! I can hardly believe that you’re this big already.

You are trying so hard to crawl, spending as much time as you can every day practicing. Sometimes you are even practicing when you should be sleeping. Speaking of sleeping, over the last week you seem to have turned a corner. I don’t know if it’s because you are so active during the day, or because you’ve started having three servings of solids a day, or because your last bottle of the night around eleven o’clock is an eight ouncer, but you suddenly don’t need that three or four a.m. feeding anymore. I couldn’t be more thrilled or more proud that you’ve managed this without much crying or fuss.

You eat so well, and you eat whatever new foods I give to you. You have yet to turn away from anything.

We’ve been playing outside on nice days, and now that summer is coming I can’t wait to show you the swimming pool at your grampa’s house and the zoo and other fun stuff I know you will love.

You’re laughing almost every day. Your dad can really get you going, laughing really hard. We love hearing that sound!

You’ve pretty much outgrown the bouncy seat and swing, the two pieces of baby gear that enabled me to make it through these six months! You still love the exersaucer and the jolly jumper. Lately you’ve been doing most of your playing on the floor, rolling over, reaching for the toys, touching and feeling everything.

Your hair is growing in now, and this makes your face look more and more like a little boy than a baby. I don’t know what it is, exactly, about your hair, but I love it so much. When we rock together in the rocking chair, I love to stroke your head and your hair to make you relax, and remember how I would touch that soft, downy place behind your ear in the middle of the night when you were newly born and I was so brand new at this job of being your mom.

We are six months in and that means that there are only seven more months until I have to go back to work, until I have to split my time between being your full-time mommy and being a full-time editor. I’m not looking forward to that day. I wish I could just stay home with you all the time, at least until you go to school.

But there I go, looking too far ahead into the future again. I need to keep practicing, too. Practicing just enjoying today, living with you and loving who you are in this very moment. The tomorrows will come soon enough.

I took Nate with me to my friend Erica’s baby shower on Saturday, and he is a total party animal. The minute I walked into Erica’s sister’s house, she whipped him out of his car seat (which, by the way is getting entirely too heavy with him in it these days) and up into her arms where he smiled and laughed and flirted and was just so damn charming. I was really proud of him. He wore his party shirt, of course, and I brought him into the living room where all the ladies were sitting and he immediately popped onto his tummy, looking around at everyone and smiling his fool little head off.

I’m so happy that he’s a social baby. He has yet to make strange at anyone, and is such a pleasure to take out to special occasions. I wore him in the Snugglie for awhile at the shower, and although I couldn’t see his face, everyone kept saying how happy and smiley he was.

For Erica’s gift I tried to pick out the things that I wished I had known about when I registered for our shower. I was so nervous to drive the car alone with Nate when he was newborn and in the back seat where I couldn’t see him, so I got her a mirror for the back seat of her car so she can see the baby in her rearview mirror. She and I went to see Coldplay together a couple of summers ago, and that night out together sealed our friendship. I got her the Rock-a-Bye Baby Lullabye Renditions of Coldplay so she could still listen to them while she nurses and rocks the baby. I got her some cotton days of the week bibs, because the plain, soft, jersey cotton bibs are my favourites, and a pacifier clip because, well, let’s just say if I had a dollar for everytime Nate’s pacifier fell on the floor, I’d be halfway toward paying for his post-secondary education by now.

This weekend went by in a real blur! I had such a lovely time, between attending a plant swap with my gardening pals in Toronto Saturday, and visiting with some family members I hadn’t seen in years on Sunday. Mother’s Day was really sweet…Graham went out and got us breakfast, got me a card from he and Nate (signed with Nate’s patented “agoo”) and some really beautiful hanging baskets for our front porch. He made me feel special, which is really all a new mom can ask for on her first Mother’s Day.

And now, for some Monday business.

• Thank you everyone who entered my BornFree giveaway over the weekend. I used Random.org this morning to generate the winning comment number, and I’m pleased to announce that Kiara is the winner! Her blog is called one more makes four and it’s filled with seriously cute pictures of her kids. Thanks, Kiara! I’ll be in touch for your mailing address.
• Today at 1:00 EST I’ll be joining my friend Gayla Trail of You Grow Girl, along with Liz from This Full House, Amie from MammaLoves, and Renee from Wolfie and the Sneak to talk about all things green and growing on TheMotherhood.com! Please join us.
• Our lovely friend Anissa is back at Aiming Low today! Send her (and her kitty) some love.
• Just this.

Happy Monday!