Six Months OMG! Where did the time go!

I am in disbelief that the last post describes Solly turning 3 months old - he will be 7 months old on the 24th of February! There have been so many great as well as challenging moments in the past few months that its hard to decide which to share. I've felt this feeling before when trying to summarize the events of some long period of time during a phone call with an old friend. So I'm going to skip over months 4 and 5 and tell you about month six.

Solly is no longer a helpless little newborn. He is a very verbal little boy who when well rested, likes to sit on the floor and play with his toys including his favorite toy, a red and yellow dump truck. He coos and calls and chirps and laughs to himself. If you play with him, he'll laugh even more.

He is also moving beyond his breast milk only diet. We have started him on some of the early solids like banana, sweet potato, spinach, and rice cereal. I was given a great old high chair from a friend of mine which Solly can grow into - he can't even reach the far edge of the tray it is so big! Rachel is enjoying the process of baking up a sweet potato or steaming spinach and pureeing into a little bowl of Solly gruel. She freezes the rest in ice cube trays and saves it for the next time. He is a real good eater too. He opens up and slurps in the gruel and raises his voice if you don't feed him fast enough. Very different from the struggle I imagined it would be to get a baby to open up for green or orange gruel. Unfortunately for Solly, his mouth is a little ahead of his digestive system. We need to get more fluids in him to counteract the fiber rich gruel - which ends up as little-man turds that are apparently a little too grown up for him. That's all I will say there.

We've also discovered that he, like other babies, is a fan of classical music. This has been a learning process for us as we observed him go from fussy baby in the car to a dozing angel after a few minutes of classical music was on the radio. We hoped that this may be a cure-all for any rough moment and filled up our iPhones with the ability to spout classical music whenever we needed - not just in the car. Over time however, we've discovered that to him, it is a relaxation agent not a tranquilizer. We often play it at bedtime now to calm him down, but playing it all night does not keep him in a state of suspended animation - darn.

One of the most special things over the past three months is the visits that we have had with his great grandparents.
Great Grandma Muriel on Rachel's mother's side and Great Grandpa Larry on my father's side.
There is something about watching our wise elders who are the wellsprings of our family hold a child 3 generations removed from them. I try to imagine being in their shoes holding Solly's children's children. It blows my mind away and I can only imagine it is as special for them as it is for me. Both great grandparents live far away and so again a visit with them is extra special.
I am pleased to say that both are also in great health and we look forward to many more visits.


Rachel and I are still holding up well too. Very used to the spotty sleep schedule, but always wishing for more. Rach is now able to get out and hike at nearly 100% ability again and we are looking forward to the early light of summer for weekend walks in the hills around us. We are also focusing all of our available energy on finding a house to move into before this magic opportunity to get into the market disappears. Our one bedroom apartment is beginning to feel very small as Solly and his toys, voice, and clothes takes up more and more space. I hope to have good news for you all on this front in the next entry - which I promise will be much sooner than this one.