Six Months Old

Dear Nathan,

You are six months old today! You have grown up so much in the last few weeks.

It is amazing to see your relationships develop with each one of us.  You love love love Dad.  As soon as you see him in the morning or when he comes home at night you light up. You won’t eat at all if you can see him.  You and Emily are on your way to being incredible friends.  You are very patient with how much she tries to help you, hold you, and be close to you.  You are my sweet Nathan boy and I love your tight hugs and snuggles. You give me a huge smile when you see me and I feel so lucky to be your mom.

You are quick to smile at everyone you see and are generally really calm. You cry when you are super tired or hungry, or when you don’t feel well; otherwise you are content to observe the world and share your smiles.  You are so patient. You are a great stroller rider, car seat sitter, floor explorer, and exersaucer  player. We all get the giggles when you start laughing, and we are always surprised at what you find funny (shaking seed packets, hands jumping or crawling around on the floor). You are starting to take notice of your own feet or hands and how they interact with the world.  It is so fun to watch you observe the sounds your hands can make when they rub against the side of your crib or play  with your toes. You sometimes swing your arm around and slam into my shoulder over and over again while you are nursing and absolutely nothing will stop you. More often than not, however, your love holding my hand, and I love holding yours too.

Nathan, I’m pretty sure teething toys were invented for you.  You have mastered grabbing things and putting them in your mouth: teething toys, plastic hangers, clothes, hands, cords, etc. If you can reach eat, you can chew on it. It has been amazing to see your hand eye coordination develop rapidly recently.  You are a pro and rolling to your front and back, often to grab something just out of your reach, and maneuver around the room very quickly with those rolls.  You have the crawling motion down, except your feet and knees go into the air instead of on the ground. You’ve almost gotten your knees under you a few times and we think that once you master that you will be off in no time. You sit up for unpredictable periods of time, but not super consistently yet. When you play your normally roll onto your stomach and chew whatever you can get your hands on.

Your sleeping schedule isn’t particularly consistent right now. It takes you 2-3 hours to settle down for the night. Some nights you only wake up a couple of times and other times you are up a lot.  You take a morning nap and an early afternoon nap every day, but you switch between which nap is long and which is short.  You have been sick the last few days and have been sleeping a whole lot during the day and not much at night. When you do wake up you like to play with me in the mirror moving towards and away. You also love being held while we do squats – it is almost guaranteed to bring laughter.

You haven’t shown a lot of interest in eating solid food yet.  You ate pieces off of a whole banana a few weeks ago and seemed to enjoy it. I tried to give you mashed up avocado on a spoon but you just wanted to chew on the spoon and were a little upset something was on it.

We are so grateful for you Nathan!