Six Months

It is insane to think that six months have already gone by since Asher was born! It has been the craziest half year of my life. Honestly, parenthood has been a roller coaster. There have definitely been great moments, days and weeks, but we have also had our fair share of down moments as well. Asher was probably about a month old and a good friend asked me if I was "loving it" so far. I think my response was a little bit influenced by some depression I had after he was born, but I remember telling her that I don't know if I love being a mom because it's freakin hard and I don't know what the crap I am doing, but that I love my baby more than I can even understand or try to explain. Five months later and some things about caring for Asher are a little bit easier, and I feel like I'm finally back to some sort of normalcy as far as my emotions go, but if my friend were to ask me the same question today, I'd probably still give the same response. I love my son so much and I would sacrifice anything for him, but being a parent isn't easy. It is probably the most physically and emotionally draining thing I have ever experienced, but I know that the biggest reason it's hard for me is because of all my imperfections, and I just have to accept that and try to be better and more patient.

It's funny, I had the thought the other day that it's a good thing babies have such an incredible ability to love and accept, because they really could find so much fault in the adults who care for them. Asher is now at the age where he can interact with us and we can see his personality coming out more every day. It is amazing to me how happy he is just being around Jared and I. He seriously thinks that we are the best things ever. He loves me despite the fact that I look haggard 90% of the time I'm around him (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration), that sometimes I loose my patience with him, that I make him do things he doesn't want to like eat beans, take naps and do tummy time. Jared and I are the center of his world, and his love for us is literally so pure and unconditional. He loves us way better than we love him and I just want to soak up this time right now because I know our relationship will continually change as he gets older

Anyway, I don't know why I was thinking about all of this recently, maybe just because 6 months seems like a fairly big milestone and I am just grateful to have survived up to this point :)  I love our little nug though, he's the sweetest baby and brings a lot of happiness into our home. Here are some things I want to remember about him at six months. . .

- He is 16.75 lbs (35th percentile) and 28 inches (90th percentile), which is pretty consistent with how he has been growing to this point, still long and lean. He does have some pretty good dunlop tire thighs though!

- He loves eating his baby cereal, squash, sweet potatoes, pears, black beans, and avocado mixed with banana, but he only tolerates green beans. I haven't ventured out to testing other veggies or fruits with him yet, mostly because I'm just lazy and always forget to pick up new foods when I'm at the grocery store.

- He has perfected rolling onto his stomach, but he can only roll himself over his left shoulder. It's the funniest thing, he does it great that way, but if he tries rolling over the other shoulder, he can't do it. He has finally started to roll from front to back, which is really nice. He covers quite a bit of ground now on the floor.

- All of a sudden he has decided that he wants to sit up by himself, it's crazy, it seriously happened over night! He can sit for fairly long periods of time without falling over, and luckily he hasn't really cried much even when he has fallen. He likes to sit and play with toys between his legs.

- He is obsessed with his jumper. The kid would play in that all day and be completely content. It is hilarious because when he jumps up and down, he switches between his two feet in perfect coordination every time, it's all very calculated and we will chant "one two, one two, one two" when he does it. Of course we think it's because he has really great rhythm, but it's probably just a fluke and he's going to end up being tone deaf and very uncoordinated.

- He does this funny thing where he smacks his hands together up and down like he's trying to brush something off. I don't know where he picked up on that, but it's really hilarious!

- His favorite toy is a ball that has holes in it (almost looks like a web) because he can shove his little fingers into the holes and get a really good grip on it.

- We spent this past weekend with some friends who have kids that are a bit older than Asher and he loved watching the other boys.

- He hasn't yet developed a preference for either Jared or I, which we are grateful for. I'm sure that will come in phases down the road, but at this point he is perfectly content hanging out with either of us and isn't shy around strangers either.

- His daytime sleep has finally gotten better. He is on the verge of not needing a third nap in the late afternoons and once we drop that nap completely, I am hoping he will become even more consistent. He usually naps around 8:30, 12:30 and 4:00ish, the first two are about 1.5 hrs and the last one is totally hit and miss. He still sleeps with a sleep sack, which we affectionately call his "squirrel suit" because it looks like a kind of star shape that a flying squirrel makes.

- He is nowhere near crawling, but when he is on his stomach you can tell that he really wishes he could move around. He will do the swimmer and kick his legs and arms like crazy. He also does this funny little "double tap" with both feet when he's on his stomach, he kicks them to the ground at the same time and will do it over and over again.

- This is for my own reference down the road with the next kid, but I think the multi grain cereal we have been giving him the past couple of weeks has made him a bit constipated. I haven't given it to him now for a couple of days and he's finally a bit back to normal there, so I'm switching back to the oatmeal cereal instead. It's actually unfortunate just how much I think about bodily functions now after having a baby.

- He is still a very observant little boy. He will just sit and stare around the room and try to take in everything that is around him, especially when we are in new places that he's never been before. I have a feeling we are going to have to start being more careful with what we do and say pretty soon because I bet he is going to start picking up on things here quickly.

- He has been going through this phase where he will wake up around 6 am and just sit in his crib talking to himself. Sometimes he would fall back to sleep and others he would chat up a storm until 7 when we'd go in to get him. After a few days in a row of him doing that and waking us up, I decided to just keep a fan on in our room so I wouldn't have to hear him, which means I honestly don't know if he still does it or not. . . Maybe I'm mean, but I'd rather get that extra hour of sleep especially when I know he is perfectly fine hanging out in his crib!

- His hair is getting so long, the only thing we can do with it is just comb it over like an old man haircut haha. I'd like to try out some sort of cool guy mohawk thing but Jared is against that, so for now he's sporting the old man hair.

With Grammy

He barely knew how to roll a few weeks ago, and now he's a pro!

He loves to grab his feet