Logan at 6 months

Wow! 6 months have really flown by.  Logan is really developing quite the goofy personality, which means he fits right in with the rest of us!

New stats:
Weight: 19.25 lbs.
Length: tall..no new data
Hair: light brown, might be starting to get wavy
Eyes: blue, but sometimes tend toward the greener side of blue
Sizes: 12 months, some 18 month PJs since he's so long

Vocalizations: Squeals, coos, grunts, and laughs/giggles. "goo" "buhbuhbuh", raspberries, "umm"

Motor Development: Logan's new trick is that he purposely launches himself forward or sideways while sitting as a means of reaching things.  However, he's usually not too happy when he lands.  He really seems to want to move.  Logan LOVES jumping in the jumperoo - even more than RJ did.  He just jumps and laughs - it's great.  He also tries to scoot around on his butt, since he doesn't have the arm strength to crawl - he succeeds in spinning about 180 degrees.  We're trying to get better about putting him on his tummy so that he works the arm muscles he will need to crawl.  Although, we're in huge trouble when he starts moving since a lot of RJ's toys are not baby safe.  We might have to break out the fun zone again, but this time to keep RJ and his toys outside of it.

Cognitive/Perceptual Development: Logan seems to exhibit a lot more understanding this month.  When it's time to nurse, he has taken to actively trying to grab my shirt.  He also enjoys peek-a-boo and seems to have an expectation about the person reappearing.  He also clearly notices the differences between objects.  While usually he is content to have a toy swapped out for another, he recently cried when I took away a tag from a  stuffed animal away from him and gave him another toy to chew.  

Relationships: Logan is a flirt - if you pay attention to him, he will smile.  However, he is clearly developing a complete and total preference for mommy, which makes sense because I am attached to the boobies and I am his primary caregiver pretty much 100% of the time.  He also is well on his way to being the "annoying little brother" since I swear he is taunting RJ sometimes.  He thinks it's hilarious when RJ is playing and (unfortunately) often laughs when RJ acts up or sometimes when he cries or whines.  For example, RJ was whining because he wanted me to read him a story while I was nursing Logan, except Logan, being the behemoth that he is, was kicking RJ.  The more RJ whined about it and got upset (despite my explanation that Logan doesn't know any better and that he should just move to avoid the kicking), the more Logan laughed out loud. 

Eating: Logan still nurses about every two hours during the day - although he has started to stretch the time between feedings to 3 hours in the afternoon and evening since he's also getting solids at lunch and dinner time.  Next week we'll start adding breakfast solids too, and I'm hoping that we can go to 3-4 hours.  However, at this point, since he keeps nursing a lot at night (see "Sleep" below), I don't necessarily want him to stretch too much, because he'll try to get in his feedings at night (which we're trying to cut out).  We started solids @ 5.5 months after I couldn't get through a meal without him grabbing my food.  Plus we were hoping that it might help with nursing at night (so far, it hasn't changed that).  Here's what he's eaten (in the order he's tried them) avocados, rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, zucchini, bananas, pears, butternut squash, and yellow summer squash.   Next on tap are probably green beans, apples, plums, spinach, broccoli, beans, and/or whatever baby friendly vegetable shows up in our CSA crate. I've made all his food from scratch except for the pears and butternut squash, much like we did for RJ during this stage. 

Sleep: We're slowly making progress, but sleep is still in small increments.  Generally he's asleep from 9-7, but was waking up at 11, 2, 4, & 6.  We've recently started sending Lance in to get him back to sleep without my boobs at least at the beginning of the night.  I really have to get better at just not nursing him to get him back down because well, he's over 19 lbs at 6 mos, he does NOT need to eat in the middle of the night.  We've had some success getting him to sleep in the pack and play for an hour or two at the start of the night, but given my general sleep deprivation, I can't even stay awake until he's done nursing to wake up Lance to put him down in the pack and play no less get myself out of bed to do it.  It's a vicious cycle that we're trying to break.  He generally takes a morning nap starting between 9:30 and 10:30 and an afternoon nap starting sometime between 1:30 and 3.  It would be nice if I could count on his naps being in his bed, but as long as he at least sleeps a little (which he gladly will in my arms while nursing), he is usually in a good mood.

Right now, if Logan would only sleep, he would be the perfect baby.