Six Months

Well that time is here, the halfway point in your first year. Although you have had many milestones already, the next six months will include changes that will give you more control in your environment. You will become a more active member of our family- hope we are ready for it!

The midpoint of your first year is bittersweet. Although I anticipate each milestone to come, I also know that as each day goes by my return to work is also getting closer. Six months from now I will be back to work, you will be at daycare (probably being smothered by your sister), and we all will be adjusting to having less time together. I truly look forward to going back to work, but leaving you in the hands of someone else to "raise" you 8 hours a day is hard. Hopefully you will adjust as easily as your sister did & will love going to Jo's to spend time with her and the other kids.

In the last month you have gained a lot of strength. You are very strong on your legs & your back has gotten very strong. Although you cannot sit on your own, I think you would be capable of doing it if you chose to work on it. You are such a wiggle worm that you do not sit still or move slow enough to master any skill of balance.

You have been rolling over onto your tummy for the last few weeks & you can now master getting back onto your back. However, you can only roll one way. Therefore, once you meet a barrier in your journey you cry out in frustration. The meaning of our efforts to show you that you can go in multiply directions has not yet registered.

Last week you treated us to a couple of full night's sleep. You were in bed by your usual time of 7pm & slept through until 5am one morning (although I think it was your sister that woke you) and 6:15am the next morning. This was very exciting for Mommy, but you have not done it again since. I am hoping to see more repeat performances of this over the next month so that hopefully by your next "month's" birthday it is a common occurrence. You are still a little tricky on napping as well. For your morning nap, you started waking up after only 20 minutes so we had to do a couple of days of "tough love". Now you are back to napping 30-45 minutes in the morning & about an hour and a half in the afternoon. You need a nap in the late afternoon, but that does not always happen & when it does you hardly ever go longer than 20 minutes. Therefore, you are more than ready for your bed by 7pm. You typically sleep until 3:30 to 4:30 & then wake up for a quick feeding before going back to sleep until 7:15am. One of the best changes in the last month has been that you almost always wake up in the morning & just chat to yourself for awhile. It's nice to be woken up in the morning to the sound of your chatter, rather than your cry.

Another welcome improvement over the last month is travelling with you in the car & shopping. You no longer cry as soon as you are put in the car seat & when I watch you in the back of the van, you are just looking around at your surroundings. Same goes for when we are shopping. It took almost six months, but we finally made it. If you are tired though, we are still treated to quite the cry. You are definitely a little boy with very little patience. When you get it in your head that you want something, you want it NOW!

On the weekend we started giving you cereal & although you were not sure at first, you definitely love it now. This is also an area where you have very little patience. It is not always wise for me to put you in the high chair BEFORE I have your food ready for you. The other day I had to get you out & walk you around to settle you down before I could feed you. You get SO upset. You have now had rice cereal, sweet potatoes & today we tried green beans. You didn't really want the beans, so we will need to try those again to see if it was a timing problem.

On Monday we went to Diaperfit for the first time. This was your first time in the pool & I think you did great. During the exercise class you float in a duck & you seemed content enough for at least half an hour. After that you had enough & wanted out. Again, tiredness &/or hunger could have been the problem. We will have to try again and see how it goes.

You are becoming freer with your smiles. When we are out, you are a more social little boy. You will look around at people & reward them with a smile when they talk with you. However, you are always very aware of where Mommy is & will often fuss for me to hold you when someone else has you. There are lots of people out there besides Mommy who would like to get to know you better, so give them a chance!