My Six Month Old Guy

Like my last post dwelt upon, my Charles is changing every day.  He's over six months old now, and it seems like every day is different.

He cut his first two teeth in the last week (on the bottom).  It's adorable seeing those tiny pearly whites peeking out when he smiles.

My grandmother (right) with her two sisters

He's sitting completely unassisted now.  When he starts to tumble backwards (which is rare nowadays), he either balances himself or he uses those tiny core muscles to slow his descent so he doesn't hit too hard.  He can scoot and twist and and lean and wriggle his way to fetch a toy he'd "accidentally" tossed just out of reach... Crawling will be discovered any day now (I'm not ready).

          My cousin, Truitt, who shares Charles' birthday

Yesterday he played a mimicking game with Nana (my mom) for several minutes, which is the first time he'd really done anything like that since he was about two months old and would stick his tongue out at me when I'd stick mine out at him.  Mom would make a little sound in her throat and he would giggle and do it back to her, and back and forth they went.  Thank goodness the video-camera was nearby!

He rolled himself off the bed a few weeks ago--it was heartbreaking and totally my fault.  I think it scared him more than anything; he was calm again in a few minutes and I never discovered any bumps or bruises.

Sleeping through the night is still somewhat elusive.  The best we've had so far is sleeping 10:00 to 6:00 (which has only happened once), and a few times he's made it that long only waking up once for a feed.  Most of nights he wakes up twice, and not infrequently (like last night) he woke up three times.  He's not in our room anymore, which is sad, but I think we're all getting more sleep.  For the first five or so months he was mostly in our bed, then he was in the cradle beside our bed, but after weeks of poor sleep (whether in our bed or in his cradle), we finally moved him to his crib and learned to let him fuss for a few minutes to see if he'd drift off before going to get him.  So, it's better.  Definitely better than waking up every hour to half hour throughout the whole night like he did for almost two months before the new arrangement.

For playtime, his favorite thing is just sitting on the floor with a few toys.  He loves things that make noise when he bangs them on something, like his stacker.  We've been rolling the ball back and forth together too, though it's mostly me rolling it to Charles, him trying to eat it, then dropping it and it rolling (sometimes) in my general direction.  But hey, it's a start!  Sometimes he's in the mood to gum on one of his softer fabric toys or teething rings, but these aren't nearly as popular as they were a month or two ago.

My dad (aka Grandpa)

My mom (aka Nana)

I haven't officially started him on solid foods yet; I just love nursing him and I don't want my milk supply to go down.  We've given him some banana chunks, which were a mess--er, success.  ;)  He's also enjoyed gumming on peaches, apples, and blueberries through a mesh feeding thing.  That gets pretty sticky pretty fast, but he can really get most of the substance through it and seems to like it.  We're going to try some avocado soon too.  But I'm in no hurry as long as he seems satisfied from nursing.