Joshua Watch: Six Months

Joshua turned SIX months old a week ago!!  And he's getting sooo big...


At his 6-month checkup last week, he weighed in at 16 lbs., 4 oz. (50th percentile), 27.5 inches tall (75th percentile), and a 17 inch head circumference (80th percentile).  Such a big and strong boy!

And let me tell you, it's getting HARD to take these tiger comparison shots.  The photo above was the only shot I got with Joshua placidly lying on his back next to the tiger... The first time I put him down, he immediately grabbed the tiger and started nomming on its leg.  And then he proceeded to do this, over and over again, every time I put him on his back on the blanket:


Sigh.  Hopefully, this isn't the end of the tiger shots, but I make no promises for the seven month Joshua Watch!

As you can see, Joshua is really getting more and more active these days.  :)  He's rolling from back to belly and from belly to back with ease now.  I'd gotten so used to cheering like a madwoman every time he successfully rolled, to try to encourage him to do it more and to get him not feeling scared about it.  Now, though, every time I cheer, he looks at me quizzically.  As though he's saying, "come on, mama, this is no big deal."  Already my little boy is getting a bit too old for some of my silliness...

He really is so playful these days, though.  Earlier this month, we introduced him to the exersaucer, which he absolutely loves!  He's getting better at standing on his own inside the exersaucer, and is able to really play with all of the different toy options.  He seems to especially love the buttons that you push to make animal noises and music.  And, of course, he loves trying to shove each of the different toys into his mouth.

In other developmental news, we started him on solid foods this month, a few days before he turned six months old.  At first, he was having none of it -- much like when we first introduced a bottle, our little refusnik would shriek, thrash his head around, and actively push the spoon away.  When I did get him to take the spoon in his mouth, he would start sucking on it, as though it were a bottle, and then get very upset when the food quickly disappeared -- which makes sense, since his entire life experience told him that sucking would provide more food.  After a few days of this, I was about ready to give up for a few weeks, but decided to try thickening the rice cereal mixture a bit and feeding him while he sat on my lap (we'd been trying out the high chair, but perhaps that was too many new things all at once).  And just like that, a switch flipped, and Joshua decided he kind of liked this solid food thing.  We're now feeding him rice cereal at least once a day, and in another week or two, we'll start with yummier solid foods.  :)

In the middle of our initial struggles with solids, Joshua also started teething!  The points of his two lower front teeth poked through the day before he turned six months -- which I discovered somewhat painfully that night when he tried gumming my fingers.  His teething fussiness actually hit after the points cut through -- he had a very cranky week.  :(  It didn't seem like he was in constant or sharp pain, but it clearly was enough to annoy him during his normal little sleep disruptions.  What used to be short (30-second) moments of making noises in his sleep turned into full-out irritated crying jags... So none of us got very good sleep that week.  Thankfully, he seems to be past the worst of it now...

Whew, this is a long one!  Thanks for making it this far.  :)  As a reward, here are some six-month photos of our cutie-pie!  (Notice how he's sucking furiously on his lower lip in these -- the poor teething little guy!)







Happy six months, Joshua!  It's hard to believe it's already been half a year...