I honestly have very mixed feelings about this whole six months thing. On the one hand, I can hardly believe I gave birth to Alex 6 months ago,
already. On the other hand, the way he acts, it's hard to believe he's
only 6 months old.
But the bottom line, is that generally this feels like a pretty golden age for him. He's so active and
interactive now. Just baby enough to be super cute, but also just big enough to be able to try to do things on his own and not need mommy or daddy constantly.
Alex has been crawling like a maniac for the last month. In fact, one of his new favorite games is to follow Melinda around the house, while she's dragging a long toy behind her. She turns around and goes back the other way, and he stops, turns, and follows. Again.
He's been pulling up to stand for 3 weeks. He's fairly proficient now... he often uses only one hand and a very light touch to keep himself balanced. He can "cruise" along the couch or anything else that has room for moving. And he's even starting to reach between things. If I'm sitting at my computer chair and he's standing at the desk, he will reach out his hand and try to turn the corner to come over to me. But it would take letting go with both hands for a moment, and he hasn't gotten brave enough for that quite yet. Thank goodness. It has been a very rough few weeks to get to this point - at first, he had absolutely no sense of balance, and seemed to young to get the concept of cause and effect... i.e., "Standing up means I'll fall down, so maybe I shouldn't stand right back up again." Yeah, right. Never crossed his mind. We had a
lot of crying during the first couple weeks. He was standing up and falling down almost constantly. And even though we have carpet, it's concrete underneath, and only has very thin padding. And he was falling back stiffly, therefore always hitting the back of his head with full force. We've now, happily, reached a point where he's slowly lowering himself down purposefully, and only falling a tiny fraction of the time. He's also spent a lot of time just doing squats over and over and over again while standing at the couch. Strengthening those leg muscles, like some sort of adult trainer!! Honestly, I would not be the least bit surprised if he's walking at 8 months. He's just getting so steady now.
Other fun things Alex has been working on include clapping and mimicking. He just suddenly started clapping to himself the other day, in the cute awkward way of including at least one fist in the process. I started saying, "Clap, clap, clap!" with the same inflection every time he did it, and now he will almost do it on "command". Jesse pointed out that with that type of reaction, we could start doing baby signs with him. Melinda had her first baby sign worked out by 7 months, after all. And then he's also starting to mimic other motions, like putting both hands high above his head. We love it!
Alex's favorite room right now is the kitchen, which I'm not so happy about. It has the hardest floor (tile... I've broken a few dishes on it, even!), and of course is the most dangerous. Our oven is very old, and when I'm baking, the door gets pretty hot. Especially near the top, where the range top dials are - they get so hot I can hardly touch them to turn the burners on. So, naturally, I don't like him wandering in there. But he is very persistent. Sometimes the only way to keep him out is with a baby gate. He's also taken to pulling up and standing against my leg while I'm cooking. Usually while I'm using the stove and it's dangerous to have him underfoot. The kitchen makes me nervous. I'd probably have a gate up full-time by now, except for the fact that there's a slight step up to the kitchen floor, and walking over the gate with the step up is too difficult most of the time.
We've held off solids for the most part, sticking to the recommendation to
exclusively breastfeed for the
first six months of life, but he's incredibly eager to get started- much more so than Jacob was (ha! Jacob was such an anomaly), and even a bit more than Melinda was. If I have him on my lap and get a glass of water too close to his reach, he will practically rip it out of my hands. His grip is very strong! I've let him try a few peas and bits of banana and apple, or suck on a juicy piece of fruit, which he's been thrilled about so far. I've let him try some avocado and applesauce over the last couple days, but we're still in taste-testing mode with all of that. It's certainly not replacing any nursing sessions yet, but he still enjoys it. He's been putting everything into his mouth that he can find, which has definitely been keeping me on my toes, since he can navigate the apartment by himself now, and we've acquired a lot more small toys since the last time I had a baby in the house.
Somewhat on-topic, he still doesn't have teeth, though I'm not surprised. Melinda didn't have teeth until 9.5 months, and Jacob didn't get his first tooth till the week of his first birthday. Sometimes people tell me that he's teething.... but I'm pretty positive he's not. I've learned what the gums look like when babies are teething, by now, and Alex's haven't changed.
Alex loves to give big, sloppy, wet kisses. Once, Jesse was holding him on his lap watching a TV show, and Alex reached up, put his hand on daddy's cheek, and gave him a big kiss. Out of the blue. It was so sweet. :)
When Alex was younger, you could tell that he
loved Melinda. Jacob was someone he watched, but the two of them didn't interact a whole lot. But over the last month, since Alex has become super-mobile, Jacob's evened out in the popularity category. Alex actually
tackled Jacob just yesterday. Jacob was sitting playing with his toys innocently, and Alex crawled up to him, stood against his back, and started pummeling him with happy hands and big kisses, and Jacob was knocked over. Alex went with him. I stared in disbelief as my 6-month old took down a 3-year-old. Alex will also regularly find Jacob just so he can "get" him - to suck on toes, or otherwise man-handle. Jacob laughs and giggles most of the time, exclaiming, "Mommy, Alex is getting me!!!" Honestly, I don't know what it is about boys. Now that there's two of them in the house, I'm suddenly seeing how the future will be. At dinner time the other night, Jacob got bored with eating, and Alex was crawling around on the floor, so Jacob joined them. They both ended up under the table. They started "wrestling". Jacob got on top of Alex. Alex didn't complain. When Jacob moved, Alex climbed all over him. I looked at Jesse, and stated, "Jesse, your
boys are wrestling under the dinner table."
"And so it begins," he said. So true. And I looked again... Jacob was sticking his rear end in Alex's face. Jesse saw it, too. "Yup, looks like boys, alright."
There are days where he doesn't sleep well, and he gets cranky beyond belief, but most of the time our "little" Alexander is such a joy to have in our home. And as tricky as 3 kids might be sometimes, I really can't imagine life without him right now. 6 months down... and only 6 short months to go before this little guy is actually a year old. I never knew time could go so quickly. Happy half-year mark, Alex!
And now, some photos you haven't seen during the last month:
Caught a silly face on camera: this is mid-laugh.
This is the first picture I took of Alex after he learned how to pull up to standing.
Happy crawling baby.
A Mommy's-eye view after happy baby crawls over to say "Hi!"
In a world with older siblings, you have to learn how to take what you want, with no reservations.
Easily balancing against an empty Rubbermaid bin, playing with tape.
Caught a glimpse of the camera!! Alex lowers himself easily to the floor, ready to crawl and attack.
And did I mention how cute I think baby legwarmers are? I feel an insane desire to run out and get more socks to make more. Even though I actually use them only once every several weeks. Anyway.... cute sleeping baby Alex, in cute legwarmers.
