6 months old

I truly can't believe my baby is 6 months old now! Sometimes I look at him half expecting him to still be a tiny little newborn and then I'm blown away with how different he looks! He is going through such a cute phase right now. He is very social and flirts with everyone and if they aren't paying him attention he is talking up a storm trying to get them to look his way! Most of the time he is successful and gets the attention of everyone around him. He's a ham! He especially loves to see himself in a mirror. He always acts so shy when he does! He will smile at himself and then immediately look down and away! But, we have started to see more and more of him talking to himself in the mirror, too! He also loves other babies! He smiles behind his paci when he sees a baby on his "Praise Baby" DVD. We also recently put up a slide show of our nieces on the TV screen. Every time a close-up shot of Addie came up he would smile and make a quiet little squeal of delight! It was so cute!

He is a ball of energy. He is always on the move! He loves to stand up still... something that apparently runs in the family because the new niece and nephew both started standing at about 2 months of age just like Caden! Oh how I wish we could see the three of them together...

He still can't get himself in to a sitting position, but he can sit well enough now that we don't feel like we have to sit right by him anymore. Last night I was in the kitchen getting his bath ready and John was on the computer in the living room near Caden. Suddenly we both hear a pitiful, heartbreaking cry. You would have thought Caden had hurt himself so badly because it was one of those sob cries. John and I both jumped at the same time to get to him and all that had happened was that he fell forward from a sitting position on to his belly. He was just so tired he couldn't' take it and just started bawling. Broke our hearts. Pretty much the only time he cries these days is when he falls over and he wants to be sitting! (Well, and he is still crying at night but more on that later....)

I think I mentioned a few weeks back how Caden loves to squeal. Well, Christmas Eve was probably the last time I can remember him squealing like that. It's funny how babies discover something new and do it over and over and over....and then suddenly lose interest in it. It seems though that Caden will "re-discover" whatever it was after a few weeks and the fun will start all over again (like when he found his feet and played with them nonstop for a week, and then forgot they were there until a few weeks later). His latest discovery is the "brrrrrr" noise. He makes that noise and blows little raspberries. It's so cute! It is SUCH a guy noise, too!

Caden is a very happy baby and smiles all the time, but is not much of a giggler yet. I think his little "hiccup" sound he's done since he was very, very young is his way of laughing out loud. The only person who can get him to giggle is his daddy! Daddy comes home from work and Caden lights up to see him and smiles and puts on a big show! Then John lifts him in the air and says "boo" to him and Caden giggles. Personally, I don't think it's fair! (Ha, ha!) I can only get him to giggle on the rarest of occasions, usually during a diaper change when I blow on his belly!

Caden has also discovered how to put his paci back in his mouth! It is so amazing to us that he recognizes what it (the paci) is and what it is for and then he just brings it right to his mouth! The only funny thing about this is that the nipple end of the paci is much easier for him to pick up so usually he puts the wrong end in his mouth! Sometimes we hold the paci in our hands and let him grab it the correct way and every time he puts it right in! We will try to get some video of that up soon!

Caden is still loving his solid foods. If you watched the video of him eating it for the first time, then you've seen what he does every time we feed him! He perches like a little birdie on the edge of his high chair and with mouth wide open, begs for his food with little "uuuuuuhhhh" sounds! You would think he would outgrow it, but he is just a noisy eater. He likes everything we give him (with the exception of sweet peas which he will tolerate and even "beg" for while we feed him, but we know he doesn't like them because he won't finish the whole jar like he does everything else!). We even introduced a new food to him (prunes) while eating dinner out at Chili's and even in that very distracting environment gobbled up the whole jar of prunes! Caden eats a lot of solid foods for his age. I'll detail all of that below (for those of you who are really interested) in our daily schedule!

Well, after all the months of trial and error and all the craziness of our move... we have finally made it!!! We are on a consistent schedule! Yay!! Now, it still varies a little here and there, but for the most part our day looks something like this:

Wake up 7:00am

Breakfast: Milk/Formula, and fruit (the entire 2.5 ounce jar!)

Nap at 9:00

Wake up at 11:00

Lunch: Milk/Formula, and about 6 TBSP of prepared rice cereal

Nap at 1:00 (but my goal is to push this nap until 2pm eventually & drop the 3rd nap)

Wake up at 3:00

Snack (for lack of a better word): Milk/Formula, sometimes thickened with a little cereal

Nap: 4:30 0r 5:00 but this nap is optional and if it does happen it is brief (30-45 minutes)

Dinner: 5:30 (regardless of if he had a nap or not dinner is at 5:30)

Following dinner we do a bath, another serving of Milk/Formula, and then we read books and put him down for the night somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00pm. If he took the extra nap we put him down closer to 7:00 and stretch out his bedtime routine. But, if he didn't take the extra nap he is usually in bed by 6:00.

The hardest part of all of this is committing to having Caden home for his naps. It is very hard to run errands during his waketimes because 2 hours can go by so quickly! Also, the whole day can get messed up if Caden wakes from his naps earlier than anticipated.

Caden still fights going to sleep at night. He goes down between 6 and 7 and cries anywhere from 5 minutes up to 1 hour. There have been 3 nights in the past 3 weeks or so where he hasn't cried at all.... and for some reason on those exact nights he tends to have his crying spell somewhere in the middle of the night instead! So we almost prefer for him to cry himself to sleep because then he won't wake up crying in the middle of the night!!! Most nights he sleeps until about 3:00-5:30 am without a feeding. Depending on when he went to bed that is at least 8 hours and up to 11 hours without a feeding. I really can't complain. When he wakes up I offer him a feeding (Milk/Formula) and then he goes right back to sleep until about 7:00. Here lately he's been trying to wake up closer to 6:00 (usually 6:20). I try to keep him in his room and let him talk to himself until as close to 7 as possible, but I usually go in before he gets worked up and starts crying.

We see the doctor on Thursday for his 6 month "Well Baby" appointment and shots. I will let you all know what he is weighing in at and I will keep you posted on his new accomplishments!!