Six Months Old!

My darling James David is six months old today.

As I had written about on Monday, six months is a mile-stone to me. When he really starts to eat food and not just play with it; sitting up . . . A six-month old is a big baby (to me)--looking more like a 12 month old than they do a tiny newborn . . . (especially next to his Great-Grandma Rosemary (GG) teehee):

What this means for my boy is a will and an energy that cause alternating joy and frustration. He is fascinated by everything. Anything new is amazing. If there is nothing else to look at he will scratch and pick at whatever--the wooden side of his changing area, the leopard print comforter (a legacy of James' life pre-me), the couch, his clothing, us, you name it.

With desire comes frustration. I am pretty responsive to him--fetching toys that go out of reach, whatever he needs. But I'm realizing now that I need to let him be frustrated. That is what is going to drive his muscles to develop so that he's actually able to do the things he wants. Like crawl and roll and reach and all these other things. So I'm starting to put things JUST out of reach now, to motivate him.


He is THIS CLOSE . . .

. . . to rolling over from back to belly, but no dice yet. He definitely got a lot better at the tummy-to-back roll. I'm still not sure if he actually does it consciously, but he definitely does it consistently, whenever I put him on his belly now, within a few minutes. Big improvement from a month ago!

And we have a sitter! He can sit independently for longer and longer stretches--which is still usually only a second or two--but that is improved from milliseconds only a week or two ago so it's very progressive! Now he wants to sit all the time and isn't as content to lay down.

He also still loves to stand. He will stand on the ground while holding our hands, stand on our laps while we hold his hands or legs or sides . . . he even stood holding on to a cabinet handle (WITHOUT me holding onto him!) for a half-second a few times over the last few days.

Crawling, not so much. He won't even get up on his hands and knees. But he's starting to do that slouchy tripod sit that is "on the way to hands and knees" . . . hehe.

He had his first real cold last week, runny nose, coughing, fussy, etc. I got WAY WAY sicker than him (yay breastfeeding)!

He REALLY found his tongue recently and now is obsessed with sticking it out, chewing on it, biting it while focusing, blowing raspberries with it out, you name it. It is very adorable. I have yet to get a good pic of it, though.

What isn't as adorable is the yelling and screaming that have also been a new little habit. It is probably related to the will, the frustration, the not-content-laying-down, you know, the whole bit. Just today I left the guy yelling to himself in his swing for a few mins while I took a break. It is just too high-pitched to even handle.

He is still nursing but his pattern has finally changed from pretty much every 2 hours. Now it's more like he'll have a snack every two hours, and maybe stick around for one letdown, or more if I am sitting in a silent and still room. But most of the time he is too interested in the world to get a good meal in him. He makes up for it, though. He has a nice LOOONG breastfeed when he first wakes up, and then usually has at least one or two long sessions throughout the day before naps, when he's sleepy. And then sometimes he has a long meal before bed but often not. Sometimes I feed him when we go to bed between 10-12 but not always.

And I am hesitantly saying that I have a 9-times-out-of-10 sleep-through-the-nighter if dawn is considered "morning", and you don't count that last night feeding (when I'm going to sleep or sometimes earlier) that he sometimes has . . . but again I'm not getting attached to this schedule. If he continues the way he's going, he's going to need to make up calories at night if he's too distracted to nurse enough during the day . . .

All-in-all, I think the last couple weeks have been an interesting look into the things to come! I was so excited for him to be able to do more stuff but now I'm ambivalent, haha. I just can't believe how much changes every single month!

Happy half-birthday, my darling baby!