Moving On

Here's that six-month update a week late, but still as promised! We go for his check up next week, so I'll have official stats then. For now, this is what he's been up to...the What He Hasn't Been Up To list might be shorter, but anyway:

* He's now sitting up all by himself and has been for at least the past few weeks, probably more like a month. He now goes from a sitting position into a crawling position, but when he starts to move, he'll plop on his belly. However, when he army crawls, he stomach somehow makes it off the ground. That's another feat this month: army crawling. He gets where he wants to go--and fast. His modes of transportation also involve rolling around to a destination. I usually sit him up in his room to play by himself for about ten minutes. So obviously he'll start off sitting, then he'll go into the crawl position, then he'll scoot somewhere to get a toy, then he'll roll onto his back to get better biting power, and when he's done with that, he'll throw the toy, roll back onto his belly, and scoot to another destination. He can't sit up from a laying position yet, but he can pull himself up into a standing position from a sitting position. This was a recent development this week, starting at Auntie Yana and Uncle Ryan's house. He was sitting in a laundry basket (yes, a laundry basket) and next thing we knew, he was grabbing the front of the basket and standing! He's trouble I tell ya!

* He's sitting in his highchair (that Daddy set up for him recently) at every meal. After I feed him (and feed him, and feed him), I give him a mini toothbrush and he'll sit there and chomp on it for quite a while. I'm sure it feels good on his gums and it gets his two teeth cleaned in the process! Speaking of eating, he's getting 3-4 solid meals a day (3-4 ounces per meal) on top of nursing every 3-4 hours. He's an eating champion. I'm starting him on peas this week, so we'll see how that goes. Oh yeah, I bought him a new teething contraption at Babies R Us. It’s a mesh pouch that you can stick frozen fruits or teething biscuits in and he can chomp on it without getting chunks in his mouth or getting cold/really slimy hands.

* You would think with the hundreds of dollars worth of toys this kid probably has that he'd enjoy them. He enjoys some of them for a time, but what he's really interested in is real life things. More specifically, anything that anyone is touching at the moment. D gave him his old keyboard and he loved it--until he saw me typing on my laptop. So I've been trying to give him more real life things and to resist the urge to buy him all these cute developmental toys which he'll probably find boring. Oh well. He's also discovered that banging with his hands or with objects creates noise and he loves that. He likes to shake things, too, which is basically the same motion.

* As far as communication, he likes to babble, but no "real" words yet. He loves to smile and does it often when he's flirting and schmoozing with his lady friends or strangers, for that matter. It's like he stares people down now until they tell him he's cute because he gets told that so often. He'll stare and stare and stare, then when they make eye contact, he'll slowly start smiling until it reaches a full grin. A bit embarrassing, but he usually gets the desired result. I'm not sure how often we get stopped on our shopping trips, but people always love talking to babies and they've come to the right one when they stop to chat with him! He can also let you know when he's done with something: turning his head away, throwing whatever he doesn't want down.

* He has bed head now. His hair is growing so quickly that I had to buy a brush that I can leave in his diaper bag in case I forget to brush his hair at home (also makes a good biting "toy" when we're out!).

* Micah now wears twelve month clothing. I had to go on a mini shopping spree for him because he all of the sudden outgrew his 6-9 month clothing. I can't really buy ahead with him because I'm never sure what he size will be! His Auntie Mary was kind enough to send him quite a few adorable outfits that we very much appreciated...thank you Auntie Mary and Cousin Matthew (and I guess we can throw a thank you to Uncle Josh in there, too. I'm sure he had some part in it?!). Also on the clothing topic, he now anticipates clothes going over his head by closing his eyes and scrunching his nose. He still prefers to be naked/half-dressed. I tell him to be patient; spring and summer are right around the corner!

* He’s fascinated with his hands. If one comes into view, he’ll grab it with the other hand and play with them for a few seconds. When he’s nursing, he’s taken to playing with my shirt with just his pointer finger. It’s cute to watch him learn new things and explore this whole new world!

* And finally sleeping. The ever-elusive sleeping, I should say. He's gotten MUCH better since upping his solids and can make it at least nine hours sleeping and not eating. We've moved his bedtime from 8pm to between 9 and 9:30pm and that's helped tremendously. We have come to the conclusion that he's just one of those kids that doesn't require twelve hours of nighttime sleep. We've also started letting him cry it out at night after we check that he's okay. If he went to bed earlier that usual, I'll feed him and put him back to bed. However if it's early on in the night or I think that he was pretty well tanked up for the night, D brings his humidifier in our room, we crank it on high, and go to sleep and let Micah do whatever he needs to do to get back to sleep. It's working out better than I expected and we are much more rested these days!