LO's half birthday!

LO is 6 months old today!!!!! I LOVE 6 month olds, especially mine. In fact, I have been so excited for LO to be 6 months old that I may not have given proper respect to him being 5 months. I even was thinking about the timing of some of his vaccines (he gets H1N1 vaccine Monday, but doesn't get his other 6 mo vaccines until his appointment on 4/20) and I thought, "oh, no issue, his next check-up is at 9 months and there are no vaccines then!" I was so much in "6 mo old" mode that I forgot he was 5 months and still needed his 6 mo check-up. You'd think that, with me thinking of him as being 6 months for the last month, today would be a non-event. Not so. Being the rule-follower that I am, LO has been exclusively nursing until today. That's right! At noon today, LO got a little taste of gourmet, non-genetically modified, organic, brown rice cereal. (I list all of that to make it seem fancy) I think you'll agree that it was a hit.

So from today on, LO gets to start exploring the big world of food. Today then also officially starts what will hopefully be a slow weaning from nursing to food and, in another 6 months, cow's milk. I'm trying not to think about that much. I know that whenever our nursing days end, it will be bittersweet. For now I'm excited about the fun of using his fancy high chair, new bibs, and spoons. For now, the prospect of flying food, cereal cemented into his hair, and messy faces seems fun. Depending on how things go, we may start some homemade butternut squash next week, then carrots the next. The local farmer's market will be so much more fun this year as LO and I should get to choose fresh local veggies and, maybe, fruit to explore. Since DH loves sweet potatoes like most people love chocolate, I'm sure they will be on LO's menu before this month is up. We've also tried using a cup a couple of times. It's a little early, I know, but since I've thought he was 6 months old for a month now, it seemed reasonable...until I remembered he wasn't. Here's video of him enjoying is one sippy cup. It looks like he's enjoying his water doesn't it? Five minutes later he still had the same volume he started with. Unfortunately no-spill spout often means no-sippie spout too. Oh well, he has fun gumming it.

True to 6 month old form, LO is becoming more social and developing more of his personality. It's still tough to say exactly what that personality will be, but it's so much fun to watch the process. He has been trying out new pitches in his cooing over the couple of weeks. Often he makes a face like he might cry, but instead lets out some air and the highest pitched squeak or squeal. He hasn't gotten very loud with these yet, so they are still cute. He has learned that DH and I exist even when he can't see us. This results in him hanging over our arms of shoulder to look for whichever one of us is missing. Unfortunately it also results in him crying for us when we walk around the corner. This makes me cooking dinner especially fun. While we know he has to learn to cope with me being out of the room, it is hard to let him fuss. As a result, we often reward LO's fussing with just the attention he wants. This is going to get us in trouble very soon.

If you've been keeping up with the blog, you know LO has added rolling from back to tummy to his repertoire moves. He often will go for a back-tummy-back roll, but for now he stops there. Soon he will string more of those together and I will begin to find him places he's not supposed to be able to get to. Yep, baby gates are in our future, probably sooner than I'd like. I've also been working with him on sitting up. All that kicking babies to at this age is quite the ab workout. (Try it for yourself!) It's WAY more fun for me to help him strengthen his abs than it is to even think about the shape mine are in. He's making better progress too. So far he has sat without help for about 5 seconds. When he can do it long enough for me to safely grab the camera, you'll be the first to know.

He found his feet weeks ago, but has finely gotten them in his hands in the last week. I bet they'll be in his mouth by next week. In addition to grabbing his own feet, he is learning to use them for other things. I'm not sure if this is more about coordination or cause and effect, but I was so impressed about 3 weeks ago when LO seemed to learn that he could move all the toys on his boppy gym by kicking one of the crossbars with his foot. This is old news now, but was just so neat to watch him figure out.

Oh, and how could I forget to poke fun at myself a little? You know the schedule I was so excited about just one month ago? Yeah, that schedule lasted about a week. Go ahead, you can laugh now. As the eternal optimist, we are trying another schedule now. It has gone ok for about a week, but I'm not going to post it...wouldn't want to jinx it. ; )