6 months (stats)

We took Henry for his 6 month well-baby check up today.
18 lbs 10 oz
26 inches
46 cm

He's in the 75th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for height, and 90th percentile for head size. Short, fat, huge head. Poor baby, haha. No wonder he hates tummy time!

ps we turned on the AC for the first time and it was HEAVEN. with 90+ degree days this weekend and lots of humidity, it was kind of unavoidable. when i was in college, my friends Eric and Derek invited me over on like the hottest day on the planet, and we turned the AC down to zero degrees and ate ice cream and watched Friends under big comforter blankets. It was one of the best days of my life.

6 months.

I'm a week late on this post, but better late than never...

Henry must have had an awakening a few weeks ago because he is a totally different baby at 6 months. He is smiley and happy, much more relaxed, he is consistently going to bed between 7-8 and only getting up once (sometimes 2x) a night to eat, then typically sleeps through the night till about 5:30-6:30am. He puts himself to sleep most nights (i.e. we don't have to rock him as much), and the nanny tells me that this week he has gone to sleep for naps some of the time by himself instead of being rocked! I honestly think he just took a look in the mirror one morning and thought, hmm. I'm older now, it's time I owned up to it. It's bizarre, and I totally appreciate it and I just love Henry to pieces no matter what he does, but I can enjoy life a little more when I'm not so sleep deprived. (I always feel selfish when I talk about my sleep. Mom guilt!)

So aside from sleeping and generally just being super easygoing and sweet, here's what Henry is up to at 6 months:

Milestones:

Smiling all the time now, at us, and even at other people who smile at him. It's pretty cute to watch passerby's smile at him and see Henry respond by smiling and kicking his feet. 

Jumping. This kid cannot get enough. We put him in his little jumper in the mornings while we're getting his bottles ready, and then again at night when we come home for about 5-10 minutes each time. I am confident in saying he would prefer to be in that jumper for at least 10 times that much per day. He jumps all day long and the best part is he only really jumps on one foot. His right foot just kind of punches the floor with his toes while his left does all the work. I die. When he's standing on our laps, he's jumping. When we stand him on the ground, he's jumping. He lives to jump. 

Goes dadadada all the time. A little bababa, but his preferred consonant is the D. Mark is convinced he is calling out to him, but we can't find any conclusive evidence on this. Sadly. :)
He just started smiling with all his gums and doing lip trills. Love this.

He likes his rattles and anything that makes noise. We have this little saxophone toy that makes music and he always reaches out to it. He gets frustrated pretty easily if he can't reach something he wants. We're working with him day and night on rolling over (so he can get the things!), but he is so uninterested it's comical. 

He will sit for a few seconds on his own, but still topples over. Hasn't quite mastered it yet - maybe in a few weeks!

Personality:

The boy wants independence! You can just see it in his movements and his expression. But even though he wants his independence, he is fiercely attached to his mom and dad. And nanny, too. When I come home from work every day and pick him up, he grabs onto the nape of my neck (tight!) and buries his head in my neck like a little hug. I love it! He laughs at us and climbs on dada every morning. He loves to move his hands around on our arms and legs and "massage". So naturally I will put him in the crook of my legs and he will give me an awesome leg massage. :)

Feeding:
He only tried a taste of a pickle and teethed a little on a bagel, but no solid food at 6 months. (We did give him a taste of banana and avocado the other day, and throw up both times. Oh Henry.) 

Stats:

He's right around 18 pounds and wearing 6-12 month clothes for the past month or so. Big belly, huge cheeks, and fat feet. We love every little inch of him!

This month, we're looking forward to exploring solid foods, getting a high chair, and starting to run together with a jogging stroller! It's going to be an exciting month.

Henry is not a roadtripper.

He was a trooper last weekend as we stuck him in his carseat day trip after day trip. By the end of the trip, he would fuss a little every time we put him in his carseat (no! don't make me sit in that thing again!). Every time we unbuckled him, he sat up straight to help us get him out, then smiled and starting jumping up and down on our laps. And then this happened.

I command thee, mother, to stop putting me in that seat henceforth! Let it be known throughout the land!

i am proud to be your mother, i whispered.

i mean, geez. who knew being a mother was such a roller coaster of emotion? bless my mother in all her goodness to have born SIX children, all in nine years. I am pretty sure that means she was pregnant or nursing for 9 years, changing diapers for at least 10 years, and checking on homework/shuttling to piano lessons/picking up kids from after school sports/attending recitals/etc for a good twenty years. She is a saint to say the least.

Yesterday was a wonderful day. I slept in, I took a nap, I ate good food, and I got to spend the whole day with the boys I love the most. When I put Henry to bed last night, I leaned over to give him his goodnight kiss and he grabbed my hand, pulled it close to him, and smiled his big Henry smile. I melted into a puddle. We looked at each other for a few moments, and I whispered to him, I am proud to be yours. Thank you for making me a mother, Henry. It truly is so sweet being the one to raise him.

Weekend in the Finger Lakes

We went to the Finger Lakes last weekend to celebrate me turning thirty. Around these parts, we turn thirty with some degree of fanfare. Mark went to Montreal, and I chose the Finger Lakes in upstate/western New York. We had never been before, and it was quite beautiful and charming! We rented a cute little house on Cayuga Lake, 25 miles north of Ithaca, through vrbo.com and spent the weekend lakeside.

Our friends, Owen and Anna, came down for a night from Rochester to visit and take us on a hike to Buttermilk Falls. It was great to meet their little baby, Danton, who just turned one. I have never seen a baby that young with so much hair! He is adorable. The funny thing about Owen and Anna is this: every time we see them we go on some sort of hike, which always ends up much bigger than Mark and I originally envisioned. I guess our idea of hiking is walking the gravel path to the site. Pathetic, I know. Anyway, the first hike we went on ended up being miles of straight up and down (should've known - it's called the Devils Path!); the second hike had us up a snowy mountain, snow camping in Washington state; and this teeny third hike was a bit soggy but the thing that was tough about this hike was baby Henry threw up twice. He's not used to all the jostling around, poor thing. He took it in stride though, and fell asleep for most of it. Anyway, we love Owen and Anna, even if they are much more bad-ass than we are, and it was great to see them before they move.

We took a day and went north to Palmayra to see Hill Cumorah, the Smith farm, the Sacred Grove, and the printing shop where the B.O.M. was printed. It was really cool to see all those sites and awesome that our church has preserved the beauty of these locations for us to experience.

My favorite part of the trip was a little drive we took to Skaneateles, a sweet little village with the most amazing bakery, where we ate our weight in fresh cake donuts. I felt a little embarrassed afterwards, because now that I'm thirty, I should have some self-restraint, right? I'm working on it. Maybe by forty.

It was a nice, serene weekend, but we quickly found out that Henry prefers his own crib and doesn't much care for the pack-and-play. His nights were pretty restless and his days were spent taking naps in the carseat while we drove around. I think we learned a valuable lesson for vacationing with a baby - choose a place to stay where you can walk around with baby instead of driving the whole time. Like maybe in a city, or right on the beach. You better believe we'll be doing that next time. Also, the last day we were on vacation, Mr. Hen came down with a little cold and now he's just miserable. He sneezes or coughs and looks up at me and says "Unnnnnhhhhhh". It's so heartbreaking!  We're taking it easy this week to recover, but it's nice to come back to a 3-day work week.

Mostly I just loved being with my two guys for 4 days straight! I can't wait to go on our next trip with this little family of mine. Sure do love them.

roadtrippin.

We're taking off for a long weekend to upstate New York. Can't wait to unplug and spend some serious downtime with my little family and celebrate my birthday (this one's a biggie, after all). This picture was taken a few years ago from a roadtrip with friends NYC to DC. Let it be known - I miss that shirt.
This will be our first vacation with a baby! We are so excited to show Hen the way of vacation, though I'm sure it will likely be him showing us how to vacation properly. ;) If you'd like to follow along, I'm on instagram at @JulieTaylor.