6 months

Marshall is 6 months old today. As in 1/2 of a year. In some ways it seems like he's always been a part of our lives, and in other ways it seems like the time has flown by at a record pace. He changes so much and every month is better than the one before it.

We just took him to his first doctor's appointment and he got a clean bill of health. He is now 26.5 inches (about 60th percentile) and 16lbs 6 oz (around 40th percentile). He has exactly doubled his birth weight, and grown 7 inches since birth. So far besides a stuffy nose for a few days, he hasn't been sick, had an ear infection, or anything else. Heck, he hasn't even had a diaper rash!

His new favorite thing is the jumper:




He bounces, spins around, and swings.

In the last month he gave up the cute babbling and "dadadadad" and "babababababa's" and now just Shrieks. Yes, with a capital "S." He likes to vary the pitch and duration, you know, just to spice it up a little.

Breastfeeding is still going well, we've made it to 6 months with no supplementing and plan to keep going as long as possible. The logistics of breastfeeding and working full time suck. I envy the moms who don't have to deal with pumping 3-4 times a day, measuring ounces, and washing bottles! We haven't introduced any solids yet and don't plan to for some time. I talked to our pediatrician about it at his 6 month appointment and she recommends wasting till 9 months unless he starts wanting to nurse every hour and doesn't ever seem to get full. At that point we plan on skipping all the cereals and "baby food" purees and just giving him chunks of what we're eating. We have a different vegetable every night so he should get a good variety.

He loves to roll around and can quickly go from front to back then back to front again. If he's on the floor and there is a toy out of reach he will flip and scoot until he can grab it and get it in his mouth. Sometimes he will sit unassisted for 30 seconds or so, otherwise he can sit with minimal assistance. He also can FINALLY put his pacifier back in the right way if he drops it, even in his sleep. We aren't really encouraging the crawling per se, and instead are trying to enjoy this time where he's not really mobile and we don't have to chase him around and baby proof everything. Although I know the crawling will be adorable, I hope he holds off till after Christmas. I'd love to have a non barricaded tree:)

In the meantime he seems perfectly content:






Right now he goes to bed between 6 and 7pm, gets a dreamfeed before I go to bed at 10, and usually only wakes once around 2 or 3 to nurse, then sleeps until 5 when we get up for the day. We get up so early so that we have some baby-time before we have to get ready and both go to work. Then there are the occasional nights where he'll sleep for 6-8 hours straight, and the nights when he wakes up every 2 hours all night long. We just kind of go with the flow around here. He starts the night off in his crib and I just lay him in there fully awake once he's showing signs of being sleepy, and he lays his little head down and goes right to sleep with no crying. The first time he wakes up we bring him in our bed and if he's sleeping happily we love to have him cuddle with us all night, but most of the time he tosses and rolls and fusses so we put him back in his crib where he'll conk out and not move until morning. Usually when Jerad is gone Marshall will tolerate being in our bed more, I think he just likes the extra space and with 3 of us in a queen there isn't a ton of space to go around.

The morning is his favorite time and he loves to get in our bed and talk, roll, sit up, grab our faces, and giggle. Its the only thing that makes 5am bearable!



Can't wait to see what the next month will bring!