6 month mark

Madeleine turned 6 months old this past Sunday and had her 6 month checkup with her doctor last night.  Maddie weighs 18 pounds and 3 ounces and is 26 inches long (that's basically twice the weight that she was born at!) and can do all of the suggested physical fetes of other babies her age: she rolls, sits up on her own, grabs things, smiles, turns toward someone when they call her name.

The bad news from our appointment is that Maddie also has eczema, and quite the nasty case of it.  Because Maddie is so young, there's not much we can do aside from keeping her skin well moisturized and I'm going to try cutting dairy out of my diet for 2 weeks to see if Maddie has a milk allergy that is exacerbating her eczema.  After reading up on eczema last night, I remember having brief flare-ups when I was a child (specifically, on my shins related to sweating under my skin guards and soccer socks) and later on as an adult I had a patch of very itchy skin on my knee that seemed to miraculously disappear after I started using shea butter lotion on it every morning.  So today, I'm off to buy shea lotion for Maddie's skin and plan on moisturizing her skin every night after her bath, before bedtime.  I'm hoping that keeping her eczema at bay is as simple as keeping her skin well moisturized.