Baby Mac - 6 Months

Dear Baby Mac,

You are now half a year old.  Six whole months.  Wow.  I just don't know how this keeps happening?  Time is passing us by in the blink of an eye.  Every day you amaze me with a new trick, a new sound, a new laugh.  You are the absolute happiest, funniest, goofiest baby ever and I cannot get enough of you.  I've said it before, but THIS has been my absolute favorite month ever.  Where is the pause button?  

At your six month appointment you weighed 16 lbs 12 oz (30th %) and were 26 inches long (80th %), so you are still long and lean.  You've been getting some delicious thigh rolls that are so incredibly tempting to chew on, it takes all my will power not to devour you daily.  You've also finally started getting hair!  Within the last few weeks it's gotten significantly thicker (and is still blonde!).  Sometimes it's a total mess (which is adorable) and you now even wake up with bedhead (which is also adorable).  You look like such a little man these days!

Baby-Led Weaning has been going great for us.  You absolutely love food and I'm so proud of you for trying new things and being such a little foodie rock star.  You are feeding yourself and your hand-eye coordination improves every single day.  It's amazing to watch you deliberately grab a mango slice from your high chair tray and get it all the way up to your mouth, where a few weeks ago you were struggling to even get your hand close to the right part of your tray.  Everyone that watches you eat is totally impressed with how good of an eater you are.  We told your pediatrician that you were feeding yourself and even he was amazed!  I bought a little travel high chair to take with us to friend's houses and restaurants so you can eat at the table with us - you love that.  So far you've had cucumbers, bananas, mangoes, apples, pears, asparagus,  green beans, noodles, french bread, chicken, pancakes, salmon, waffles, bison ribeye, peppers, broccoli, sweet potatoes, bison bacon, pasta, avocados, turkey, yogurt, carrots and even a bite of chocolate pudding and creme brulee!  You love it all!  I don't know how much you're actually swallowing (my guess is very little), but you are experimenting with all kinds of different tastes and textures, which is GREAT!  You're still getting all/most of your calories/nutrition from breast milk and formula, so this food is just for fun.  And FUN it is!  We are big fans of BLW.  (As are the dogs, who get to clean up the mess around your high-chair.  They love it.)

You are teething like a mad-man these days.  Everything in the house is covered with a layer of baby drool.  You go through a couple outfit changes a day because your necklines get sopping wet.  My face and shoulders are perpetually slobbery, anything close to you (including the dogs) gets covered and your hands haven't been dry in months. Last week I noticed that your gums were swollen and you couldn't go a minute without gnawing on something.  And just like that, a couple days after turning six months old (see, there's a benefit to being late with these update posts) you got YOUR FIRST TOOTH!  Oh my goodness, I almost died when I felt it.  Of course I started crying.  Mainly because I am so happy and proud of you for getting a tooth and also because this really means that you're not going to be a baby forever.  Man, that's hard to handle.  I wasn't quite expecting that so soon.  

And speaking of growing up, you are SO close to being mobile.  You can sit in a tripod now and are getting pretty good at keeping your balance.  Every now and then you get distracted by something behind you and when you turn to look for it you fall over.  We yell TIMBER! and you laugh.  You can't quite get yourself into a sitting position yet, but you're close.  You're also really close to crawling. You get up on all fours, you rock, you move your legs, you push, but it's not all working together just yet.  When you want something just out of reach you do a combination crawl/roll to get there.  You're a rolling machine.  I have a feeling you'll be crawling by Christmas though. Again, I am NOT ready and also so incredibly proud of you.  Your dad and I have to get our acts together and get the house baby-proofed asap.  I have a feeling that once you start moving, you're going to be hard to stop and leave a serious path of destruction in your wake.  

You've also started doing some incredibly cute things.  You love to squeal and scream, which you think is hilarious and then you start cracking up.  You've started saying "daadadadadadada" at the top of your lungs.  No sign of "mammamamama" yet though.  Sometimes you close your eyes and shake your head back and forth repeatedly and laugh.  It's hilarious!  And you now smile for the camera!  I don't know how you learned to do that, but every time I pull out the camera, you cheese it up!  Honestly, I couldn't be any prouder at that trick than anything else you do.  It's amazing!  You're also ticklish under your arms and on the bottom of your feet.  Your dad and I terrorize you as the tickle-monster and you laugh and squeal and squirm!  It's seriously the best thing ever.  And your newest thing is whining/crying when I leave for work in the morning.  This one isn't quite so cute or awesome.  I think the separation anxiety is starting.  I know you love your nanny (and you get over me being gone within 2 seconds), but it kills me to see you crying for me when I leave for work in the morning.  Hopefully this won't last too much longer or get much worse or my little heart will break.  However, I know you're in good hands and you have so much fun all day long with the nanny.  I have a feeling that within a few weeks you'll be crying at the end of the day when she leaves instead.  

You've really turned a corner on bath time this month too.  You now love it!  You can't get enough.  Your dad and I have started taking baths with you because there's no way you'll sit in that little baby bathtub anymore, you're too active.  Getting you to sit or lie still is impossible.  You jump and wiggle and launch yourself into the water with incredible gusto!  You are so incredibly slick and squirmy and wild - bathing you is like wrestling a greased pig!  You definitely get your love of water from your daddy.  I think you'll be a swimmer, too!  

I'm also happy to say that your sleeping has gotten DRAMATICALLY better.  The doctor gave us the ok at your 6 month appointment to do sleep training with you.  We started that night.  Of course we didn't exactly know what we were doing and we (I) was not ok with letting you cry it out, so we did a modified version of the no-tears, Happiest Baby on the Block sleep training.  Basically we give you a "dream feed" bottle before we go to bed (around 10:30) and we cut out that 4 a.m. bottle and pushed it back to 7 a.m., when you wake up for the day.   The first night was awful and I ended up rocking and bouncing you for hours and hours.  The second night was much better and you only woke up once, then put yourself back to sleep within 10 minutes.  The third night you slept through the night!  WHAT?!  We couldn't believe it.  Maybe it's a fluke, but we've now had a couple nights in a row where you sleep from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with one dream feed.  My goodness, I can't believe what a difference this makes!  We're like entirely new people now that we're sleeping!  I can't believe you adapted so quickly.  You are seriously the most amazing child ever.

Oh Macaroon, I am just over the moon in love with you.  I asked your dad last night if it was normal to love something so much and to be this happy.  I wonder if every single mom out there feels this way about their baby?  If so, how does everyone not have 10+ kids?  I want so much more of you!  I want to clone you and have an entire house full of Macs.  You are just the most incredible thing in the world.  I am so lucky to be your mama.

Firsts:

• first Halloween
• first Thanksgiving
• first time going to mommy's hometown
• first time sleeping through the night
• first tooth
• first dinner party

Likes:

• feeding yourself
• petting the dogs and cat
• rolling, rolling, rolling
• laughing
• squealing
• screaming
• anything that makes noise when you shake/bang it 
• pulling mommy's hair
• farting (I can't believe the boy-farting humor starts this early)
• singing and dancing
• splashing in the bathtub
• the camera
• peek-a-boo
• cell phones
• necklaces
• drinking water from a cup

Dislikes:

• your car seat
• when I leave in the mornings for work 
• standing still
• other babies crying
• not being able to get to something you want
• being spoon-fed
• being tired