Happy Half Birthday Joe!!

Guess who is 6 months old?....This guy!!

Height - 26 3/4 in (55th Percentile)

Weight - 16 lbs 8 oz (29th Percentile)

Head Circumference - 17.5 cm (81st Percentile)

I'm actually really surprised at where he comes in on the growth charts.  Everyone always

tells me how big he looks, but he's only in the 29th percentile for weight.  Crazy!

He must just have a way of looking big and intimidating.  That will be useful later in life.

Joe is one of the happiest babies that I know.  I suppose I am a little biased, but in all

honesty, he has such a good disposition about him.  The only time he gets a little

fussy is when he is hungry or tired, and those are easy problems to solve.  

The rest of the time he is happy just being Joe.  

Six months marks one very exciting first.  We got to start him on rice cereal, which we did

a few days ago.  He hasn't really gotten the hang of it yet.  He holds his mouth open with

this look on his face like I've just given him poison, and then it proceeds to run out his mouth and down his chin in a nice drool-like mixture.  Yum!  I'm sure with a little practice

however, he'll be eating like a champ in no time.

And with some solid food might come some better sleep habits?  Or at least one tired mama

can hope for that.  It's funny because I went back and reread his 5 month post where I

talked about being excited that he was sleeping 8 hour stretches.  It's sad, but we've taken a

few steps backwards since then.  Bedtime is still between 6:30 and 7:00PM, but he now

wakes up pretty consistently between 11:00PM and 12:00AM, and then again between

4:00 and 5:00AM.  He'll go back to sleep and wake for the day around 6:30AM.

 It's not terrible, especially since he always goes right back to sleep after I feed him, 

but I will be SO happy to sleep more than 3 hours straight in a given period. 

Another six month milestone that we're coming up on is teeth.  Although he doesn't have

any quite yet, I feel like they are going to pop through any day.  He is constantly drooling

and always wants something in his mouth.  Most impressive is when he puts his foot in his

mouth, but anything will do really.  Toys, blankets, his fist...when he started trying to

eat the tie sticker off his shirt today, I knew our photo session was probably finished.

 

Favorite Things To Do - He loves his jumper and is tall enough now where he can actually

jump up and down in it.  He'll sit in there and jump forever with a big smile on his face.  And it's the perfect place for him because he can watch Owen play which is another one

of his favorite things to do.  All Owen has to do is talk to Joe and he starts smiling

and laughing.  Overall he is so much more social which is fun.  

He smiles at anyone willing to engage him.    

Favorite Toys - Sophie the Giraffe, Star Teething Blanket, Manhattan Toy Winkel,

Freddie the Firefly