6 Months!

At his 6-month well child check, Soren weighed 16 lbs. even, and was 26.5 inches long. We're very excited that Soren has moved up from 10% to 25% for weight, and still remains at 50% for length. Soren is now starting to wear his 9month/6-9month clothes. I *think* Soren's eyes are turning Hazel, neither Brian nor I have Hazel, but we'll see (yes, I know it's possible). He also has strawberry-blonde wavy hair. He got his first 'haircut' the day after Christmas when we were down in IA, just the little front piece snipped because it was getting close to going in his eyes.

Eating: Soren's been eating about every 2-3 hours by nursing/taking a bottle. After his 10:30 nap, he will get spoon-fed some oatmeal cereal mixed with formula, and either a fruit or veggie. We've sometimes done a dinner too, but it's hard to keep this consistent at the moment. So far Soren has had carrots (like), sweet potatoes (like), peaches (unsure of), bananas (like), avocado (really like), and butternut squash (dislike). We have been doing some store-bought baby food, but I plan to make mostly everything from here-on-out. We have peas and green beans in the freezer that I made a few months ago, but they didn't get pureed thin enough so I'm holding off on those. This week I made butternut squash and carrots, and still need to do yams, blueberries, apples, and a re-do on beans and peas. He is SUCH a great eater, except for the butternut squash today...hopefully he'll come around. Our pediatrician has recommended we start off with yellow veggies, then green veggies (mixing with yellow if he doesn't like them), so that's what we're doing at the moment. She also said to do both cereal and a fruit/veggies at a feeding, so he's getting both carbs. and vitamins. Sometimes we'll add in fruits since he can tolerate them. I'm finding the easisest way to make most of our foods is to buy a bag of steamer veggies, pop them in the microwave for a bit longer than the directions say, then throw them in the blender. Then I just spoon into ice cube trays for nice 1 oz. portions, then once frozen, I'll pop the cubes out and store them in freezer ziplocs. One bag of veggies cost us $0.99 and yields about 14 oz oz. of food, so basically for the price of the cheap store-bought stuff (not organic either), I'm getting three times as much for making our own, plus no preservatives, score!

Sleeping: Oh jeez, I'm gonna hold off on this and write a whole separate post on sleeping soon.

Development: Soren rolls consistently from tummy to back and back to tummy. He's also beginning to army-crawl, and can move about 5 feet in less than 5 minutes(I think it's time to baby-proof this place!). He's beginning to roll onto his tummy to sleep. He's not yet sitting, but we're working on this quite a bit with him. When placed in a semi-reclined position, he will often do a sit-up. Soren can hold things with both hands, and I watched him switch a toy from one hand to the other today. He is beginning to 'hold' his bottle with both hands and I can let go. Soren does not have a tooth yet but boy, it better come soon! He is chewing on his hands and everything that comes near his mouth! He is a very social baby, and loves to 'talk'. Mostly he likes to yell and squeal, he's one loud baby! He's beginning to make consonant sounds, including 'ma' which I guess is advanced for his age (according to pediatrician). We talk alot with him, and I may or may not be working on the word 'mom' extra-hard with him ;-). He's a very happy baby, really only cries if he becomes bored or is tired. We're pretty blessed to have such a great baby!

Likes: Soren enjoys sucking on his fist and fingers or anything that comes close to his mouth. He loves to jump in his jumperoo now, and also enjoys watching "Blue's Clues" or "Baby Einstein" while doing so (mommy and daddy love this time too!). He enjoys looking around and being upright. He still loves Sophie the giraffe. We really enjoy tickle time now too, he's pretty ticklish in his armpits and hip area, and we will lift him above our heads and 'tickle' him with our hair. Soren likes to touch faces and will pull at hair, necklaces, glasses, etc. We're working on getting him attached to an elephant lovie to aid in his sleep-training...he's kinda 'ehhh' about it right now.

Dislikes: Sleep-training and getting into his carseat (we may be moving him up to a convertible carseat soon, I think he likes to be able to look around, and in his infant seat, he can't see much).

Medical update: I *THINK* his reflux is pretty much gone. He still spits up, but I think the amount and frequency are pretty normal now. He is still on medication for it, but even a month ago it was still bad. His increase from 10% to 25% for weight is also indicative that it's getting better. Pretty soon we will be steam-cleaning our carpet and furniture ;-).

Now that we're starting to have a more consistent afternoon routine, here's what his day looks like:

8-9am eat, wake up
9-10:30 play
10:30- nebulizer, book, bottle/nurse, naptime
11:30- 'lunch'
noon- 1:30 play
1:30 bottle/nurse, nap
2:30-6ish play and eat
6- nurse/bottle, nap
7-8:30 play
8:30-9:30- bath, get dressed, bottle, book, bedtime

His nighttime is all screwed up due to working on sleep-training, but hopefully by next month's update we'll have a good routine down!