Six months! What???? I can’t believe Cody’s already halfway through his first year. He’s changed so much since he was born, it’s like he’s not even the same baby. It’s wild!
Cody’s skills now include sitting up by himself, pushing way up on his arms while on his tummy, occasionally pushing his butt up into the air while on his belly, rolling onto his belly from sitting, pulling himself up to standing with only a little bit of assistance (mostly for balance), taking steps when we hold him up by his hands or arms, rocking in his mini rocking chair, and playing with toys by himself. He’s just starting to learn how to reach for us to be picked up, which is super cute. He’s also really good with his hands and can pick up things of many different shapes and sizes, including plastic balls, his bottle (which he still doesn’t drink from), pacifiers, and his toys. He can take the lid off of his small toy boxes, and he can get the rings off of his ring stacker. He tries to play his xylophone and sometimes succeeds. He understands to some degree how to make his electronic toys make sounds, and becomes frustrated when they’re not working because they’re turned off. He pets our cat, Booda, and of course our dog Sky (although he mostly likes to grab and pull her fur)—Marley doesn’t usually sit close enough to us to get his share of petting and poking, and he doesn’t seem to care for it anyway.
Cody seems much more interested in walking than crawling, but he’s not truly close to either. He’s showing some signs of getting ready to crawl, and he’s impressively good at taking steps when we hold him up, but he has a way to go until he’s mobile. Maybe by next month, we’ll see!
We’ve officially introduced solids. We’ve tried rice cereal, mashed potatoes (thinned out), and yogurt. He seems interested, since he often opens his mouth and leans toward the spoon, but he doesn’t always appear to enjoy the food once it’s in his mouth. It may take him a little while with this new experience before he starts to really like food. In a few days, we’re planning to try applesauce and then we’ll start adding more new fruits and veggies from there. As expected, most of it ends up on his face, hands, clothes, and high chair anyway! Fortunately, he’ll still be getting the majority of his nutrients from breastmilk for the next few months at least, until he starts eating more and more solid foods, and I’m planning to continue nursing him until he’s at least a year old.
One exciting milestone that Cody just reached is his first tooth emerging! He now has one tiny tooth peeking out on the bottom, and I expect the tooth next to it to come out soon enough. Teething is an ongoing and unfortunate part of our lives right now. He puts everything he can get his hands on into his mouth, naturally, and he drools like crazy. Although some weeks are truly terrible because he’s in pain and incredibly grumpy, other weeks he’s much more pleasant (like this week, yay!).
Cody has some funny new antics this month. When he’s in the Ergobaby carrier on Cory, and Cory’s not moving enough or otherwise doing something to displease him, Cody will start to thump his head back onto Cory’s chest repeatedly until he changes what he’s doing. Those backward headbutts can be pretty hard—it actually makes an audible “thump” and leaves Cory’s chest feeling a little sore if it goes on too long!
He also likes to look at us close up when we’re holding him. He’ll lean out a little bit and turn to look at me, usually with his silly open-mouth stare, and sometimes reach up to pat my cheek or grab my nose. Or if he’s feeling especially affectionate, he’ll lean in as if to eat my face. I reward his cuteness with kisses on his chunky little cheeks, which sometimes he clearly enjoys with closed eyes and a smile, and other times he boyishly rejects with a quick turn away. Did I mention he’s really ridiculously cute? =]
One other funny thing he likes to do is rock back and forth when he’s sitting on the floor. He has good enough balance now that he doesn’t fall over, and he seems to have fun figuring out how far backward and forward he can rock.
He’s what I’ve come to label an aggressive nurser—meaning that he likes to kick, punch, slap, grab, scratch, claw, and pull hair while he’s nursing. It makes things rather difficult, but I also have to laugh because it’s so funny to sit there with my baby nursing and reaching up to slap me at the same time. Obviously, he’s not trying to hurt me, he’s just a wild little thing.
That’s pretty much all I can think of for new things this month, but basically he’s growing really well and he’s a lot of fun. I realize this doesn’t need to be said, but I feel the urge to say it whenever I talk about him—I love him so much! He’s definitely my favorite baby in the world. 😉
