Henry's 1/2 Year Post

Guess who's half a year old, constantly on the move, almost 19 lbs and still absolutely adorable . . . this guy!

That's right, the end of March marked Henry's first half-birthday, and what a great 6 months it has been! This little boy is so full of love and joy. He hands out huge smiles to everyone he meets, and his giggles sound like happiness overflowing. He loves exploring and being on the move, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in huge trouble when he takes off running in a few more months. Where oh where did my sleepy little newborn go?! If I blink again he'll be a year old, so lest we forget, here's what Henry's loving right now:

• Standing, Crawling, Walking - He's not the most efficient crawler, but he can crawl, pull, scoot himself wherever he wants to go, he has also learned how to sit himself up and pull to a stand. We discovered that he can use the base of our papasan chair as a sort of walker, so his favorite thing is to cruise around the living room. He's so fast! And he's helping us babyproof, by showing us all the things he can reach and make messes with.
• Music and Sounds- He loves drumming with metal pans and spoons, playing with Lilly's keyboard, xylophone and percussion toys, and generally loves to bang things and make noise. He's expanding his vocal range, too, making more consonant sounds, but we're especially loving his high-pitched happy/victory screeches as he walks around the living room in the "walker."  He still hates sudden loud noises that are not of his own making.
• Playing "Pass the Henry"- He loves to dive out of your arms and reach for the nearest person. Then he reaches back to the first person that had him, and then back again. He thinks it's pretty funny that he can make us do his bidding.
• Growing! He's pretty much 75th percentile across the board. 18 lbs 10.5 oz, 27.25 inches, 44.2 cm head circumference. And he's got his two bottom teeth.
• Helmet head- Okay, so he's probably just ambivalent, but we're loving that he should be done with the helmet in a few more weeks. We'll all be happy to get rid of it before the weather gets too hot.
• Sleeping? He's a great napper, although the 3rd nap might be phasing out soon. At night he goes to sleep easily around 730 or 8 and sleeps until 730/8 in the a.m., but he still always wakes up once during the night to nurse. Unfortunately with teething and colds and such this month we had some rougher nights, usually that just meant he woke up twice instead of once, but he also woke up super early a few times and couldn't go back to sleep. He's so happy and easygoing during the day, though, that it (mostly) makes up for the bad nights. Also, he only sleeps on his tummy and doesn't use a binky.
• Food- After trying out feeding a few weeks ago, he started teething and spitting everything out so we backed off for a couple weeks and just nursed. A couple days before he turned 6 months we started back up and he's doing well eating three very small meals a day in addition to nursing every 3-4 hours. He loves sweet potatoes and tolerates baby oatmeal, squash, applesauce, pears, green beans, prunes, yogurt, strawberries, bananas, etc. He's mostly eating purees, but he's getting pretty good at gumming small soft chunks of food.
• Eating books- I'm trying to be a good mother and read to him, but he sure makes it hard when he just wants to claw and suck on every book he sees. We mostly stick to board books because he's surprisingly adept at ripping paper already.
• Facing front- my cuddly baby no longer wants to cuddle against my chest, he twists away from me so he can see what's going on.
• Springy doorstops
• Splashing- Henry LOVES to splash, as soon as he sees water he lunges forward with his little hands ready to go. In the bath he splash, splash, splashes to his heart's content. I think next to walking, bath time is his favorite activity.
• Tickles, especially on his neck and tummy, produce stellar results. :)

 Loving the swing!

1st injury (with a little help from sister)

 Here comes Henry!!!