Six Months

Sam is half a year old! He's so grown up! I know I say this every month, but I can't believe its been this long. I realized that I don't have a hard to accepting that Sam is 6 months old, but it doesn't feel like its been half a year since my life changed so dramatically. Has it really been that long since I went to work? I guess so, because my life at home with Sam feels pretty normal these days.

Last month I mentioned that Sam could sit for short periods of time unassisted. Well, just a few days later he began sitting by himself for as long as we leave him in one place. He is officially a sitter. He's even getting more daring about how far he'll reach for a toy. So I guess the next step will be crawling. When place on his tummy, he'll reach for toys with one hand, and sometimes he'll scoot a bit, but I think we're still a couple months away from crawling. That's ok - I like that to know that he stays where I put him for now :-)

Our biggest development over the past month has been the introduction of solid food. I already posted about the cereal. About a week ago we started offering veggies and he LOVES them. More on the baby food to come later...We had our 6-month well visit yesterday and spent lots of time getting questions about eczema and feeding solids answered. The good news is, even on days when I think Sam's skin is REALLY bad, the doctor only considers it to be a 3 on a scale of 1-10. We did get a prescription topical steroid to use on flare ups, so hopefully we'll be able to continue to manage his symptoms. And of course Sam was weighed and measured - he's still long and lean. Very lean. He's 26 1/4 inches long (50%), but only 14 lbs 12 oz. That's the 5th percentile for weight. The doctor spent 5 minutes reassuring me that he is not in the least bit concerned about his slow weight gain, especially since he's doing so well on his milestones. He mentioned that size as a baby is largely genetic, and I have confirmation from both grandmas that Chris and I were both peanuts as babies. I can tell you though, if our appointment had been 15 minutes later (ie AFTER he finished his bottle) he would have weighed in at 15 lbs 1 oz (I know because I weighed him after the nurse left while we were waiting for the doctor!). I looked it up and that the 11th percentile. Either way, he's pretty cute! Oh, and he got 4 shots and 1 oral vaccine while we were there. Not happy about that! Luckily he forgets quickly.

So that brings us to our monthly lists of like and dislikes:
Likes:
-Pacifier
-Veggies
-Chewing on anything he can get in his mouth
-Tickling/Blowing on his belly
-Playing Independently

Dislikes:
-Baby Cereal
-Being dropped off at the Nursery