Half A Year

Alex is 6 months old!!

Sorry about the snotty nose -- Alex celebrated his 6 month birthday with a bad cold and he HATES to have his nose wiped :(

 This was a big month for accomplishments!!  Here's a few of the things that Alex is doing now:

• He is rolling over all the time!!!  It took him awhile to get the hang of it, but once he started there was no stopping him!!  I would set him down on his playmat and 10 minutes later he was off of the mat and facing a totally different direction. 
• He LOVES his Mommy!!!  When he is with someone else and I come into the room he gets a huge smile on his face and starts "talking" to me.  When I go over to him he reaches his arms out to me and then snuggles into my neck while kicking his legs.  If he wakes up in the night and Joel goes in to get him he throws a big fit.  I can usually pinpoint the exact moment when Joel picks him up because he starts crying harder.  He'll scream and scream until I finally come in and then as soon as I pick him up there's complete silence.  While this behavior is often frustrating, Joel and I have had a good giggle over it on several occasions.  It's pretty funny!! (and it secretly warms my heart that he loves me so much!)
• He weighs 16 lbs!!!!  According to the growth chart at the pediatrician's office, he is short and fat!!  As our doctor put it, "he's a little box!". 
• He is a chatter box!  He loves to squeal and grunt and he is often so loud I can't hold a conversation. 
• He is sitting up on his own!!  At Christmas he was flopping over like a rag doll and two days later he was sitting up all by himself!  This has made playtime much more fun!!  We can sit him on the floor in front of a pile of toys and he keeps himself busy for quite a few minutes.  He usually falls over eventually, but then he just rolls around and plays so this has given me some extra free time!

• Lately, giving Alex a bath has been a bit of a challenge.  He has loved bathtime since he was born, but as he gets more mobile it becomes more difficult to hold him up and wash him at the same time.  Since he is now sitting up on his own, I decided to try putting him in the big bathtub instead of in his baby bathtub.  WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!  He sits there on his own and splashes in the water while I scrub him down and there is no struggle to keep him from sliding around like there was in the baby bathtub!  Isabel and Gabe thought it was a great thing that Alex was in the bathtub and they wanted to join him, so the other day I gave all three of the kids a bath together!

•  Now that Alex is 6 month old he can start eating solids!  I'm in no hurry to introduce him to anything other than milk, but Joel is chomping at the bit to feed Alex cereal because he thinks that it will help him provide sustenance while I am at work.  I have to admit that he's probably right on this one and it would be kind of nice not to have to worry about pumping so much while I'm at work.  So, tonight we are going to give it a try and see how Alex likes baby cereal.  I'm going to do my best to blog about it SOON so stay tuned for more on that! 
• I suspect that crawling is in our future before too long!  Alex has really made some major progress in his mobility this month.  He started the month barely rolling over and has mastered that and the sitting and he has started to scoot around in order to get to his toys.  Gabe was an early crawler and walker and I think that, with two big kids to keep up with, Alex is going to do the same.  I'm not sure if I'm glad about this or not. 

All in all, Alex is a happy, fat, bundle of joy!  We are getting a big kick out of his emerging personality and all the sweet little habits he is forming!  Isabel and Gabe continue to adore him and I can always count on them for help.  I'm really having a hard time believing that Alex has been with us for half of a year already!!!!!  Where did the time go?