Copycat

Jesse has recently learned to mimic our actions pretty well. He will shake his toys when we do, and today James got down on the floor with him to do some push-ups. I am loving this stage!

Where's Jesse?

This video was taken nearly a month ago, but you can see that Jesse loves playing this game. Sometimes he gets pretty wound up.

Introducing Solids

We decided to wait until the six month mark to start Jesse on solid foods, so about a week and a half ago, Jesse got to try his first "real" food. I've been excited about this milestone for a while now because 1) I love food, 2) I love cooking and have been looking forward to making my own baby food, and 3) I've been really curious how Jesse will respond to solids. I will say that starting solids was a little anti-climactic, though. For some reason, I was expecting Jesse to embrace his first spoonful of rice cereal, but he actually eyed it somewhat smugly and refused to open his mouth for it. When we finally got a little bit into his mouth, he looked like we had just done something awful to him.


The first three or four days we gave him brown rice cereal and then the past several days I have given him some sweet potatoes. Until today, he basically showed no interest and I had to nearly pry his mouth open if I wanted to get anything in him. I was expecting the same response today, but he opened up his own mouth for the first bite, and for several bites after that. Then he was no longer interested, and even though he would open his mouth, he would just blow it all right back out, causing it to splatter all over his high chair. Even though he still looked somewhat baffled by the food in his mouth today, he swallowed it well and gladly accepted more, and he didn't really seem to thrust any of it back out (except for when he started to play with it), so that was good.

We've also introduced the sippy cup now that he's begun eating solids. I don't think he gets very much out of it, but he knows what to do with it, and he especially seems to like the water on hot days like today. This afternoon we walked over to Sonic for Happy Hour and Jesse really liked sipping on some water when we got back inside from the heat.

Six Months

Two weeks ago Jesse reached the big six-month mark. He no longer feels like a little baby to us. Each month I think to myself, "This stage he is at is the best...I don't think it could get any better than this". And each time I am wrong, because each new month proves to be more fun and exciting than the last. Here's what Jesse is up to at six months:

• He is sitting up really well. I still surround him with pillows just to be safe, but he rarely falls over. He really loves sitting up and being able to select the toys he wants to play with (or rather, chew on). He is noticeably more content by himself now that he can sit up.
• He can get up on his hands and knees for maybe a couple seconds, and will scoot around the living room like this.
• We noticed his first tooth coming in a week ago, and the second one is now visible, too. Thus, he wants to chew on EVERYthing in his reach. Our hands, our legs, strangers' fingers, high chairs and tables at restaurants (yuck!), keys, and of course, all his toys. Unfortunately, the teething process does seem to be causing him quite a bit of pain. We had three pretty awful nights this past week, where he seemed to wake up constantly for much of the night. We couldn't get him to settle back down, which is unusual for him. We must be pretty dense parents, because after three nights of this, it finally hit us that his teeth were probably the culprit. We gave him some Tylenol the next night before bed, and we didn't hear a peep out of him until 5 a.m. Tylenol works wonders! I also got him some teething tablets to use during the day and in the middle of the night if he wakes up, and those seems to be helpful, too.
• He still loves his books. They kept him happy many a time on the long ride down to Houston. His favorite now is probably "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and he never fails to smile at the goldfish. We've been going to the library and checking out lots of board books for him so that we aren't reading the same ones over and over and over again.
• He still loves being sung to, as well, and he especially likes songs with motions, like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Where in Thumbkin?". I can also turn on "Wheels on the Bus" in the car if he starts to get fussy, and he immediately stops crying.
  
• Bedtime these days is anywhere between 6 and 6:30. He really can't make it any later than that without being super cranky. He usually wakes in the morning between 6 and 6:30, although this past week it has been earlier because I think his mouth is in pain and the medicine is wearing off.
  
• He's still taking three naps a day, but I can tell that he is getting better at stretching the time between his naps. Right now, two of those naps are fairly short (45 minutes) and one (either the second or third nap) is longer (anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to two or two and a half hours).
  
• He's become quite a babbler and says lots of "ma ma" and "da da" and "ba ba", although I know he doesn't yet associate any meaning with those sounds.

At his six month check-up he weighed in at 19 pounds, 12 ounces (90th percentile) and measured 27.5 inches (also 90th percentile). He's still a big boy, but his growth is slowing down a little bit, which is good news, because we are starting to feel a bit decrepit around here from hauling around all that weight.

I'll end this post with a confession: I think I may have officially qualified for the bad Mom of the year award this past week. Wednesday morning I sat Jesse way back in the corner of the couch and sat down right next to him. As I proceeded to check my e-mail, I looked away and next thing I knew I heard a very loud THUD and Jesse had landed on the floor in front of the couch. He must have basically somersaulted off, because of where his head landed. I felt SO BAD. He cried a little, but I honestly was shocked that he didn't cry anymore than he did. I called James freaking out and he came up from downstairs, but by the time he got here, Jesse was all smiles and giggles. Let's just say that I learned my lesson, and won't be taking my eyes off of him for even a second now. It could have been much worse than it was.

A Day at the Beach

On Friday we drove down to Houston with James' parents to visit Katie, Jeremy and Benjamin. Lisa and her boyfriend Steve also met us down here, but they drove separately since Lisa had to be back earlier for summer school. Saturday morning we got up early and drove about two hours south to Surfside Beach. It was fun to see the two babies' reactions to the ocean. Since it was so incredibly hot, we only stayed a couple hours, but it was just enough time to take a dip in the water and enjoy the beach from underneath the beach umbrellas. Jesse had just fallen asleep as soon as we pulled up to the beach's parking lot, so he was a little bit foggy when we first arrived. His initial reaction looked a little apathetic, like this:


I think the combination of sleepiness and the intense heat was just too much for Jesse. He looked so lethargic laying on the beach mat, that he didn't even gripe about laying on his tummy for so long. He did seem to (somewhat) enjoy playing in the water a little bit, though.


Jesse crashed again once we got out of the water. He usually doesn't like cuddling like this, but he was so worn-out that he didn't complain.