Jones is 6 months old! I can hardly believe it, time is flying by so fast! I'm looking forward to Halloween, I know we're going to have a lot of fun dressing the little guy up. Some of our friends throw an annual Halloween party we'll be attending, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun. I'm going to force Alan to decide this week what we are going to do as a costume. I say "we" because we're doing a family-type thing where we all have coordinating costumes. Right now it's between Star Wars and Star Trek ... I was kind of torn, since the little animal costumes are so cute, but I think it'll be more fun doing something like Star Wars (ha - just typed "Star Wards", which is actually pretty appropriate) or Star Trek, and the pictures should be hilarious.
So, the Jones update ... at 6 months, Jones:
- Wears size 6 months clothes (although I still squish him into some of his roomier 3 months clothes)
- Wears a size 3 diaper (and they look ginormous to me! We just put him in them this week. Alan said, "There is no way these are the right size for him." Me: "Check the weights listed on the box! This is his weight class!")
- Eats solid food 3 times a day, and, I would say, probably around 30 ounces of formula a day. We are having some difficulty with the formula right now - he'll eat about 4 ounces at a time and then he. is. done. And no amount of coaxing can convince him to eat more. He's doing really well with the solid food, though, so I guess that's probably affecting his desire to eat formula. His favorite solid foods are green beans and pears. He likes squash and mangoes as his second favorites, and he will eat sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, bananas, and peaches, but not with gusto. He WILL NOT eat peas. We have had two bad Exorcist-type incidents with peas, so they are off of our menu list. He also gets a 6 - 8 ounce bottle of cereal/formula right before bed, so as to try to get him to sleep through the night, because he ...
- Is having some trouble sleeping through the night. I think it's just because we've had some upheaval lately - he's had 2 ear infections inside of a 3 week span, so he hasn't been sleeping well because he didn't feel well, and then I think he's still adjusting to sleeping in his own room (although he does really well), and I also think the dietary change has some bearing on the issue. It's not like it's terrible - our average right now is 9:00 - 4:30, so I'm thankful for that. If he could just make it another hour, we'd be all good.
- Loves his jumperoo - he would jump, jump, jump in that thing all day long if you let him.
- Can sit up on his own for short periods of time, and especially loves for you to sit in the floor with him and work on this skill.
- Has a favorite phrase: "mmmm-bah" ... also, "mah, mah, mah" (I like to pretend he's saying, "Mama!", but I know that he's not).
- Has discovered his feet!
- Loves to smile and laugh, and it's pretty easy (and fun) to make him do both! However, I don't have a lot of pictures of him doing either - he seems to have inherited his daddy's predilection for not smiling in any pictures - maybe it's a guy thing?
- Is cutting some teeth! I can see the bottom front two teeth - they're trying to push their way up!
- Has really gotten to love his pacifiers when he's tired - if he's getting kind of fussy, or you can tell he's tired but fighting taking a nap or going to sleep, if you rock him and put his pacifier in, this kid is OUT. He has also recently really started liking his Razorback pacifier, which should come as no surprise to anyone, and makes for some cute pictures.
- Loves the spoiled labradors... I think he and Augie are going to have a special bond. Augie sits on the floor with us when we play with him, checks on him in the night (I know because I can hear Augie going into his room over the monitor ... although he may just be checking for dirty diapers that someone forgot to put in the diaper pail), runs over to sniff and lick him at the first opportunity (usually when Jones is in the jumperoo, as that puts his face right at Augie level), sits beside us while we feed him (both solid food feedings and bottle feedings), and helps with bathtime and bedtime.
- Likes to go on walks with Mom and Dad - we are loving the wonderful weather, great for strolling! Funny walking story: yesterday, Jones had been up for, like, 5 or 6 solid hours and was obviously tired but was fighting taking a nap, so we went to rock in his room, put the pacifier in like I mentioned above, and he was out like a light. Alan, not knowing what we were doing, came into the room and said (loudly, because he didn't notice that Jones was asleep), "Hey, you wanna go for a walk?" Jones' head immediately sprang up from my shoulder and looked around wildly as if to say, "Walk?! Walk?! Awesome!!!!" We had a good laugh about it.
Interesting news, interesting news ... ah ha! My mom and I started going to Zumba two nights a week. We really like it, and it's definitely a workout. I enjoy getting the blood pumping and the heart racing, and it's fun to spend time with my mom. I really like the class we're going to, the instructor is very sweet (and English - love her accent), and the other participants are nice, so it's not intimidating or anything (like, there aren't tons of young, tiny people showing off their tiny-ness or anything like that).
Book reports ... none as of right now, but I'm about to start Cutting for Stone, which was highly recommended to me by a prolific-reader friend of mine who said it was one of the best books she had ever read, which is pretty high praise, and I'm pretty sure if she liked it, I'll like, since we have similar literary tastes. I am also planning on going to the library and getting off of the black list. Wwwwwaaaayyyyy back in March, when I went into the hospital for preeclampsia and everything, the spoiled labradors had some difficulty adjusting to my absence and, you know, just the general upheaval of the whole situation, and Spoiled Labrador # 2 (Layla ... BTW, they are labeled # 1 and # 2 in order of their acquisition by the Ward family, Augie was our first spoiled labrador, Layla is our second ... didn't want anybody to get any idea that it was some sort of favoritism ranking or anything) reacted by eating one of my library books. I mean, she gnawed the corner pretty well, but it was still in one piece and readable. So, we tried to sneak it back into the library by putting in the book mailbox, but they noticed it and called me up and (very politely) told me we would have to buy the book. So I owe the library $32 dollars and have since March, so I need to go take care of my fine so I can not feel guilty about it anymore (in my defense, I tried to pay it once but they no longer take checks and I never have cash on me ... or, at least, I never have $32 in cash on my person).
I'm also trying to branch out on cooking, but it's slow going. I like making tried and true recipes, especially since Alan is so picky (picky as in: he knows what he likes and he doesn't like to deviate from that). I don't want to get in a food rut, though. I'm going to delve into Crazy Sista Cooking, which is a cookbook by Jimmy Buffett's sister, and looks to have some good recipes that I could manage. I'll post the successes!
So, that's what's going on in the Ward family: raising a baby, being a family, Zumba, reading, cooking ... life in general, and a good life all the way around :o).
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