Oh my heavens, has it been half a year already? My daughter is six months old today.

"Gigi" can roll 360 degrees, sit up with minimal assistance, feed herself a bottle, play peek-a-boo, laugh, babble, and charm the socks off of passersby.

At this stage, she has also begun to notice when Mommy or Daddy is not in the room. Today, Grandma carried the baby around behind me to show her that Mommy still exists when she goes into the next room to fix herself breakfast. "See," she would narrate, "there's Mommy making coffee...and now she goes to the refrigerator and Ooo! She got the butter out...and what's she doing now? Ooo! She got a cup...see, you have to keep an eye on that Mommy, you never know what she'll do next!" Funny, I thought I was the one who was never supposed to leave her unattended.

The good news, I suppose, is that I will have a respite from this stalking in the interim between Grandma's departure and Gigi's learning how to crawl. I expect I'll spend much of that time in the bathroom, enjoying blessed solitude for the last time, at least for the next five years.