The perfect baby age

Six months old might just be the perfect age. This is the beginning of the Gerber baby stage, so we’re talking max cuteness. She’s a-freaking-dorable with those cheeks and Disney-sized eyes and chubby starfish hands. No one in a 10-foot radius can help but be charmed when she aims them a toothless grin. And she’s liberal with those, sprinkling them everywhere.
Even better, she still stays where you put her, kind of. I can prop her up on the couch with a pillow across her lap and she’ll play happily next to me while I write. But that window is fast coming to a close, so I’m taking serious advantage while I still can. If I’m not quick enough with the pillow to hold her in place, she’s sprawling forward or tipping sideways. On the changing pad, she’s chomping on her own toes and doing her best to roll off. And she’s a total nightmare in the Bumbo, twisting this way and that to reach past the array of toys spread out around her to get to that fascinating folder or spoon sitting just out of reach. She managed to roll herself right out of that little seat the other day, in the two seconds that I had stepped away to grab my water bottle. She was a little surprised to find herself on her tummy, but she was triumphantly clutching that spoon, so, you know, mission accomplished?
She laughs at everything and nothing, and she talks all the time, but it’s the very best kind of chatter. She just started the ba-ba-ba-ba thing, and she did a singsongy little “ma ma ma ma” the other night. She coos and shouts and hums and makes herself very much heard. In a house with three other kids—whose mouths probably stay open from the time they wake up in the morning until they’re asleep again at night—she’s holding her own.
If I remember right, we’ll continue with this perfect stage for a little while. Then she’ll be well and truly mobile, meaning she’ll be completely untrustworthy. Still pretty darn cute, though.