Liam's eating solid foods!

So on December 16th, one day after his 6 month birthday (so Daddy would be there to see), we fed Liam solids for the first time! He had been eagerly watching us eat for about a month or so, so I was happy to finally be able to feed him. I decided to go with the easy stand-by... rice cereal. He LOVED it. Gobbled up the whole bowl, despite everything I read that said he'd only want a few spoonfuls. After three days of that, we moved on to oatmeal, which he also loved. His first "real" food was carrots, and he also loved those. Sweet potatoes were next... he didn't love those as much, but I think that's more to do with the fact that I wasn't able to get it completely pureed than the actual taste. Today, I gave him bananas, expecting him to love them...and oooooh he made the worst face. Yay! That's MY boy! (I hate bananas!). After a few spoonfuls, he seemed to be tolerating it a lot more and might even like them. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'm having a lot of fun with the foods this time around and am really enjoying making food for him. He LOVES eating, so I think I'm going to bump him up to two solid feedings a day next week.

He DEFINITELY was going through a growth spurt last week, getting up every 2 hours at night to eat and eating a ton throughout the day. Now that that seems to be passing a bit, I think we're going to try to crack down on this getting up in the middle of the night to eat thing. It's really tough because physiologically, he's fully capable of going a whole night without eating. From everything I've read, by feeding him at night at this point, I'm just creating a night-feeder. There are two factors, however, that make it tough for me to just let him cry in the middle of the night. Number one, we're all in the same bedroom and I don't think it's that fair to Eli to let Liam wail it out for 20 min at 3am. And number two, Liam's still on the super little side, and I feel that I should really feed him as much as I can. I might start supplementing him with a big ole formula bottle at night, though, so that I can do away with that guilt.

At 6 months, Liam is still a super smiley happy guy. If you smile at him, he smiles back with a huge toothless grin. He loves when I kiss him on his chest or feet and always starts giggling. Hearing him laugh is just about the cutest thing in the world. He's very good at sitting up and can reach for things when sitting, but if we're not nearby, he'll plop backwards or forwards at any given second. He's a rolling machine and likes to roll around to get whatever he wants. He remains SO close to crawling and has really been getting up on his hands and knees a lot the last few days. He can get into that position and then push himself backwards...so oftentimes, he ends up with his legs underneath the couch. He LOVES watching his big brother do anything and now laughs and smiles at him ALL the time.

He's still a super little guy, but I really feel like he's gotten a lot heavier. I tried to weigh him on a regular scale (with me getting on first...then getting on with him) but it wasn't accurate. I could and should take him into the doc for a weight check (something she told me I could do since he was so small), but to be honest.... it's just too much of a pain to get both boys ready and all the way down to the doc office at a scheduled time, especially since the closest elevator to the doc office is about 1.5 miles away. So I'll just have to trust my instinct that he's at least remaining at the 3rd percentile mark and will hope for the best on his Jan 14th appointment.

He's still in size 2 diapers, which is where he'll probably be for another few weeks. He can squeeze into a few of his 3 month outfits, but for the most part, he's solidly into 6 month clothes now. Yay!

He's consistently saying DADADADA (not fair!) and is starting to really babble a lot more. He loves trying to put everything into his mouth...books, toys, my hands, etc, and is in the (long) process of getting three teeth in on the bottom. The one that looks closest to popping through is the one on the left side of his mouth...just left of his center teeth. I will be happy when they pop through so they stop causing him so much pain, but I'll miss the adorable toothless smile!

:)