Byrne After Reading: 6 Month Update

Happy 6 Months to Ellis!! Ellis turned 0.5 years old on May 22, 2011. The past 6 months have flown by! It is crazy to think that last May I was in my first trimester!

I'm happy we've made it to 6 months for a wide variety of reasons, but my number one blog related reason is that I'm no longer going to do week by week updates. Frankly, I'm not sure what week we are on now. Every time I have to count back from February 7 (the week E started school at 11 weeks). Plus, I've only been posting about once a month anyways - shame on me!

Doctor's Appointment-

At our 6 month checkup, Ellis weighed 19 pounds 10 ounces (90%). His teachers and I discussed this and we all thought it was lower than our guesses. I guessed 20 and a few ounces, one teacher voted 21 and one 22. We all agree that he is a solid 19 lb 10 ou baby, but I guess any baby that wiggles and squirms can feel like they weight much more than they actually do. Ellis was 27 inches (dropped down to 75%). I made a comment in front of the doctor that I couldn't believe he dropped from the 90% to gasp 75% and he rolled his eyes. We have a good relationship! :) Ellis' head measured in the 50% again. At our four month appt the doctor gave us a few items that we should be able to do at 6 months and we can do them all, I made the doctor confirm that we did in fact receive an A+ on our report card. I got our list of to-dos for our 9 month checkup (the doctor told me that he doubted it would be that long before he saw us again) and I smugly smiled to myself that we are already doing some on the list. Yes, I am going to be one of those obsessive parents. In fact the doctor told me that I have a wonderful, healthy, happy, good baby (duh) and that I would not be as lucky the next time around. He in fact guaranteed it (not the unhealthy part, but the other adjectives). Scary!

Appearance-

Our hair is laying down now. Everyone at school mourned the loss of the cool hair. Everyone oohed and ahhed over Ellis' hair in the beginning but now they just ask when I'm going to get his hair cut. I've put some serious thought into this and I think that we are almost half-way to a haircut. After the first person told me what a beautiful GIRL I had, I decided that after 5 comments we are going to a barber shop. We have now been told this twice. Only three more comments to send us running to a professional with scissors!
We have two teeth. We have been teething for quite awhile, but around Ellis' six month birthday you could feel the jagged edges of one bottom tooth. I believe it was the left (Ellis' left, see that can be confusing). Both bottom teeth have now broken through and should be coming up shortly.

Interests-

Our number one interest these days is still eating. We are still getting 4-8 ounce bottles every day. We are still eating 3 times a day - twice at school and once at home. We still get pretty ticked off when we are ready for our bottle but it is not ready for us.
We have developed an interest in the television remote(s) and cell phones. Yes, this is Brad's son for sure. In fact, he's rearranged my apps on my iphone and it is so sad that I can't always remember how to rearrange them back.
We still love the ladies. My parents took Ellis to a park to swing and he couldn't enjoy the swing due to a 3 year old blonde girl not paying him any attention. We still have a monopoly on the ladies at school too.
We are grabbing for everything and loving to sit up as much as possible. Bathing in the tub is a challenge and eating out has become a much more tedious and you have to make sure all the silverware and the drinks are out of reach. We were eating at a Mexican restaurant (where I was enjoying my first margarita, although when I told this to Elmo, she reminded me that two days before we had had margaritas at my house, but restaurant margaritas are clearly much more different than home made ones, right?) when my drink suddenly lurched toward me due to Ellis' quick reflexes.
One scary interest is now when we are in the pack in play we are now obsessed with the electrical outlet in view. Baby proofing the house is a must in the coming weeks!
Ellis is still very observant and very aware of his surroundings. The teachers at school, the ladies at the doctors office and even strangers always make this comment. I have nothing to compare this too, but it seems like he does like to check everyone out.

Favorite toys-

We are still loving Sophie the Giraffe, our flexible ball that rattles, and our 'first' book.
We are still pretty needy of our paci.
We love sleeping with our monkey lovey, our lamb and our sock monkey. We hold and cuddle with each one before drifting off to sleep.
We taste every toy.
At school, we have to learn to share toys. I stayed 5 minutes one morning watching Ellis and a little girl battle it out and coo and squeal at one another trying to get the toy that the other had. It was hilarious! Of course once they both that got said toy they were over it in 10 seconds.

Sleeping habits-

We still cry out in the middle of the night for our paci. I would say this happens 3-4 times a night. Fortunately most nights we go right back to sleep.
We are going to bed a little earlier these days. We are normally asleep by 7-8 pm vs. 8-9 pm. This in turn means we wake up earlier 5:30-6:30 am.
We like to sleep on our side or our stomach. We no longer like sleeping on our back.

Firsts-

We went to a pool for the first time. Ellis seemed to enjoy this, although we did not fully submerge him and he was never deeper than his waist. We are really excited about our upcoming beach trip.
We have now been ditched for two consecutive nights while parents have partied.

Pictures (not that many, I've been bad this month)!

First trip to the pool - Saturday, May 21, 2011