Alexander,
Six months. A lot can be done in six months – houses can be built, roads paved (though, not if you live in Pennsylvania), plants grow (I have officially run out of cheesy analogies). Your focus over the last six months – GROWTH. At your six month pediatrician appointment this week, you weighed 19 lbs 2 oz, and measured 27 inches long! You are officially huge (and nicely proportional). It pleases us to know end.
This has been a tremendous month for you, development-wise. In it, you expanded your solid food menu to include applesauce, sweet potatoes, squash and bananas. Although officially your first experiences with food occurred just shy of your fifth month, I haven’t written much about the experience.
Allow me to correct that injustice. The first time we fed you I did the actual duty, while your Daddy documented the event in about a jillion photos and thirty minutes of the most boring video anyone other than us has ever seen. We were acting as if you were reciting Shakespearean soliloquies at 5 months, while you basically just sucked liquid rice cereal off of the spoon. On the whole, you figured out the concept of eating quickly, and so far everything we’ve put in front of you you’ve seemed to enjoy. Last night, I swear you said “Yum” though a mouthful of squash, but that was probably just my imagination. I’m crazy that way. 
I’ve enjoyed so much the idea that someday you’ll be eating food that your Dad and I prepare for you. I am completely in denial that you may choose to limit your diet to chicken fingers and pancakes for two years, or that you may throw a tantrum whenever anything green touches your plate, or that you may just decide at some point that you don’t want to eat at all. For now, I’m enjoying my little fantasy land where everything your father and I cook for you, you’ll love, and that by the ripe old age of six you’ll enjoy a fine local goat cheese after your Coq au Vin. This fantasy land is also the one that is staffed by a full time butler, chef and maid, and the one where I’m able to fit into my closet full of pre-pregnancy clothes. Ahem.
You have also officially rolled over (front to back), although we have no pictorial evidence of the actual event to share with your children someday because you kept this trick to yourself for a few days (note that after a few days after the first roll, your Daddy caught you on video and made an impossibly adorable movie, which I have proceeded to bore all of my colleagues with, twice).
The first roll occurred when Daddy put you on a quilt on the floor to enjoy your toys while he ran downstairs to put a load of laundry in (Daddy’s work is never done), and when he returned you were on your back, checking out the skylights. What amazes me is that you’re able to do this with your helmet on and make no noise whatsoever, yet whenever I pick you up lately, you manage to ram your helmet-head into my collarbone with a loud resounding crack that I’m sure our family can hear in Baltimore. Each time it happens I wonder if I’m going to need X-rays. At six months you’re stealthy.
We procured your helmet as planned on February 20, and after about two weeks you were acclimated enough to wear it all the time. On the plus side, we are already noticing a change to your head shape. The top of your head is rounding out and the back is starting to look less severely flat, which pleases us so much. You have adjusted beautifully to this and we’re happy to report that wearing it does not impact your sleeping schedule one little bit, thank you very much for the week of needless worry about that.
On the downside, when we take your helmet off for your nightly disinfecting, your head smells like a really dirty locker room. I never thought I would say that my beautiful baby boy smelled like rotten feet, but you do. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Am I thanking the heavens that it is not the peak of summer here? You bet. I am praying every moment that you’ve completed your treatment by May.This month, we visited Florida, and you met your great grandparents Bender for the first time. You were amazing – the flights were amazing, your transition to sleeping in the hotel crib was excellent, and of course, Poppop and Mommom couldn’t have been happier to meet you and spend the weekend spoiling you. It was a wonderful visit, and the moment we arrived at home, I was ready to plan our next trip.
Your baby vocabulary is quite extensive. Occasionally you’ll look up at me and say, “blah blah blah,” which is especially humorous when I’ve just finished a long conference call for work that you’ve been privy to. Lately, you’re fixated on dah-dah-dah, (it’s okay that you’re saying dada first, and not mama - the person who experienced labor, birth and its aftermath, all for you, and the worry and the tears, all for you, no guilt, but COME ON) and in the back of my mind I know it’s only a matter of time until Daddy is your total idol and I am relegated to the likes of that lady who makes the occasional nice tasting meal and who makes me kiss her goodnight.
It’s completely cool. I love that you’re taking such a liking to your Dad, not only because he is a wonderful father, but because I see more of him in you the more time the two of you spend together. And, Kiddo, believe me when I tell you that there is no other man on the planet that you should try to be more like than your Dad. It will serve you well in your adulthood.And speaking of things that make me smile, you were disarmingly charming this evening. Your dad and I have modified our evening routine with you somewhat to help you stay awake to finish your bottle. I fed you tonight (something that your Dad usually does) and I think you realized for the first time that it as different both because we were in the family room and because it was me that was feeding you. At one point, you stopped eating, smiled and reached your hand up to my cheek. After that you talked for about 30 seconds, and then smiled again. It was at that point that I realized that if you remembered this at sixteen and happened to remind me of this moment shortly after asking your father and I to buy you a new car, that we would very quickly be out $20,000.
Love,Mommy
