Max: 6 Months

Obviously I wrote this a long time ago, but here it is, finally published, for anyone who cares.

Here we are already at Max's Half-Birthday!  I have been quite terrible at updating the blog lately, but things have been busy and I keep telling myself that if I have time to work on the blog, I really should be working on our family photo books, which I am waaay behind on.  So, I guess this blog has turned into a monthly update page for Max, at least for the time being.  (And, just to justify it for myself, I do include the monthly updates in our yearly photo books, so it's helping me towards my goal of keeping up with the albums.)

Night Sleep: Max continues to sleep well at night, going down between 6 and 7 PM (usually closer to 6:00) and waking between 5 and 6:30 AM.  The last few weeks he has woken up to eat at 5:15 on the dot most days, but will often go back to sleep until 6 or 6:30 (or until Jesse wakes up and thus causes Max to wake, too).  If Max wakes to eat in the 5:00 hour, I always take him back to our room and put him in the pack and play to sleep to avoid disturbing Jesse.  Jesse could probably sleep through hours of crying in the middle of the night, but once 5 AM comes around, he is easily awoken.

Daytime Sleep: Max's napping has improved, but he still takes 3 naps per day, so he is probably just going to be a fairly short napper until he can consolidate his daytime sleep a little more.  I still notice that he gets very noticeably tired and cranky after being awake for 2 hours, but he can sometimes stretch it a tad longer. We are almost always home for his first nap of the day (usually around 8:00), but he often takes his middle nap "on the go", usually in the stroller or car seat as we come back home from whatever we're doing.

Eating: He still nurses every 2-3 hours during the day (at least I think...I don't really look at the clock very much). He definitely wants to eat more often than Jesse ever did. We introduced solids the week before he hit six months, and the experience has been polar opposite from our attempts to introduce Jesse to solids.  For one, he actually opened his mouth for the food. He also already eats much larger quantities of baby food than Jesse ever ate.  So far he has tried these foods (in this order): bananas, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, avocados, pears, peas and carrots. He doesn't seem too keen on avocado, but other than that he seems to love them all. I have also been giving him puffs to play around with on his tray, but Jesse ends up eating most of them (he calls it "cleaning up after Max").

Play: Max is rolling both ways and starting to seem interested in moving to get toys that are out of his reach. He still doesn't sit very well unsupported yet (just for 5-10 seconds, but usually not even that long). He loves to play with and eat his feet. Like Jesse, he really loves music.  He goes to music class with me and Jesse and seems to really enjoy the music and all the activity around him (but then he loses it by the time we are singing "The Goodbye Song" because he is ready for another nap). Bathtime is also a favorite, but I confess that it probably doesn't happen often enough.  I (and the bathroom floor) end up literally soaked afterwards because he does so much vigorous kicking.  Max is super smiley and just adores Jesse.  He gets the biggest grins and laughs watching Jesse do whatever it is that he is doing.

Size: Max's 6-month check-up is not scheduled until the end of the month in order to line it up with his 3-month post-op appointment, which means I don't know his stats.  According to our bathroom scale, he weighs in the vicinity of 22.5 pounds. He is wearing 12 month, 12-18 month and 18 month clothing.