Mama Tried

Six Month Weigh-in and Nathan Nonsense

Baby James had his six month appt and weighed in at 14 lbs, 7 oz. He's bigger than Buster! We are quite thrilled because he's still on his growth curve (10th percentile! Holler!) and I am so thankful that he's healthy and growing easily again. 
Nathan is playing pretend more and more and it is hilarious. Yesterday Jeff reported that he was driving all of his cars over to the bus, then pretending people got on the bus, and then drove them- over to the airplanes. "You want to fly on this plane? Ok!" He's got the whole airport routine down.  And he's getting good at comparisons- reading Spot Bakes a Cake for the trillionth time he pointed to the bowl of cake batter and asked, "What is?" I said it was cake batter and he looked confused and then said, "Oh! Is like dough?" Because he usually just helps me make cookies and pizza. Heh.
This morning James was sitting in his high chair and was done eating but still playing with his spoons, and Nathan looked over at him, sitting there by himself, trying to get a spoon into his mouth, and shouted, "NO! Mommy, NO DO THAT!" I don't think he likes it when James shows signs of being more like the rest of us. Poor Nathan, he's really in for it.

SIX MONTHS!!!

I cannot believe sweet Baby James is six months old today. Time has really flown. He hasn't really started doing all that much new since I posted about him two days ago (unless you want to hear how he's starting to transition to solid food poops, which trust me, you don't).  We've started nap training which he's not thrilled about. 
That's about the only thing he's not thrilled about, though. He is our happy boy and Nathan, Jeff and I all love him so much.  Gearing up for Christmas this year has been so fun because of how excited Nathan is but also because I cannot wait until both boys can enjoy giving and receiving. I can't imagine having two better children and my heart has just been so full all week because I get to watch them grow up. Only six months down with James and it's already been the time of our lives.

Mr. Perfect

My sister Sarah always makes fun of me because I think James is the perfect baby. But HE IS. Sorry. I take him every Saturday morning to a meeting with a bunch of women and they all agree. They pass him around for an hour and a half and coo over him, and he just smiles and is adorable.   One woman (who clearly doesn't have kids) said, "You must be such a good mother for him to be so well behaved." Ha! He is almost six months and I am quite sure I can take credit for exactly none of his perfection.
He is doing very well with the sleeping- goes down easily and still gets up twice to eat, but that is such an improvement. Then the 5 AM hour is rocky- he is up but still tired. Nathan was the same way for a long time so I'm sure he'll improve. Nap training is around the corner, I fear.
He's also doing pretty well with solid food- he loves oatmeal but unfortunately not when it is mixed with water, so I'm pumping again. He also loves sweet potatoes and squash and green beans. I tried giving him some very ripe banana, and he loved the taste, but couldn't handle the texture yet and kept spitting it out and then trying to put it back in his mouth. 
He can roll all around the room, too. Nathan was such a late crawler that we never gated the stairs but I think we're going to have to with this one.
As for our other Mr. Perfect, Nathan is super excited about Christmas time and would watch Charlie Brown's Christmas fifty two times a day if we let him. He is big on pretending these days and likes to announce that he's a dog or a dolphin or "I'm Mommy!" We got new tires this week and they put a number on top of the car and he thought that was the funniest thing- "Look, Mommy! Our car has a hat! Our car is LIKE A TAXI CAB!"

Sleep Training

Sadly there are no actual trains involved.
So I started good ol' Ferber last night with Baby James. I put him down, unswaddled and awake, and... he went to sleep without a peep.  I was like, "It's a Sleep Training Miracle!" I had tried putting him down unswaddled at least once a week with no success, so this was amazing. Especially considering how awfully he'd been sleeping the past month. 
Of course, he woke up an hour later. It took about 45 minutes for him to go back down and then he was up around 11:30 to nurse (and went down fine) and then at 2:30 (and he was up and crying til 3:30) and 5 (and he was then pretty much up for the day and we got him out of bed at 6).  Which sounds horrible, but that would have been a Really Good Night on any given night this past month, so we're sticking with it. Tonight he only fussed for half an hour. We'll see.  He also took a two hour morning nap without needing any sort of nap reset, which he hadn't done in forever.  Of course then I was irritated because he didn't get much of an afternoon nap but I remembered when Nathan was 5.5 months a two hour nap was unheard of so I'm counting my blessings.  (Also, James is quite happy when he's awake, so he's already far ahead of the game compared to where Nathan was at this stage.)
Last night Nathan went to bed at 6:30 and we did not hear a peep from him until 6:45, so I know there is hope for Sweet Baby James. 

We just got back from almost two weeks at my parents'. It was awesome and fun and the boys LOVED every second of Grandpa/Grammy/Great-grandmother/Aunt Sarah/Uncle Stephen/Aunt Elisabeth/Uncle Michael/Cousin Parker/Cousin Samuel time, but I am glad to be home and back in our routine already and hopefully soon having baby James sleep more. Having him in the same room with us was hard.

He has started solid foods and maybe that will help since that boy loves himself some sweet potato. You have to give him his own spoon so he can shove some in his mouth too and woe unto you if you get distracted and don't have a spoonful ready when he's ready for it. He's gotten bigger and cuter and definitely sweeter. If he just gets sleepier he'll be the perfect baby.