Baby Kammie is 6 months old!

Baby Kammie turned 6 months old this week. It's hard to believe that she's already halfway to one. She's grown a lot and weighs almost 14 pounds. She's trying hard to sit up, and she can say "mama". I don't know if she knows what it means or not, but when she's hungry or fussy she'll say "mama, mama". She still doesn' t have much hair. When I took her down to the hospital to weigh her, one of my Kenyan coworkers there asked me why we had shaved her head! Most Kenyan babies have lots of hair, so I guess they find it unusual to see one without hair.

I know after being here for almost 2 years, I've probably gradually changed in many ways to adapt to life here. However, this morning I had one of those moments when I realized it. The local version of vanilla doesn't taste anything like what we have back home and gives things a funny taste. My sister sent me a bottle of vanilla from the U.S. quite a while back, and I have been using it pretty sparingly in order to make it last until this summer. Usually I put half of what recipes call for so it will last longer. I was excited that one of my friends here who was in the states over the April break brought me back a bottle of vanilla flavoring (which she bought on sale for 89 cents!). I was making French toast for breakfast this morning, and my recipe calls for vanilla. I like the taste of vanilla in it, but I usually leave it out because I don't have much. Now that I have plenty of vanilla, I was able to put in the whole 1 teaspoon the recipe called for. I had to laugh at myself for how happy that made me feel and how it felt like such a splurge. Only in Africa!