6 Months

At some point each day I find myself overwhelmed with what a blessing Leland is. Also – in all honesty – each day I often find myself also overwhelmed with the constancy of motherhood. Thankfully, the blessings outweigh the hard work.

Leland weighs 12 lbs and is 24.75 inches long. He is wearing size 2 diapers and mostly 3-6 month clothes. He still fits into 3 month pants because he has short legs and several larger 3 month onesies still fit. 6 month clothes are just starting to fit, but most are still too big. I call him my little peanut.

Leland has mastered rolling front to back. He has been doing this for about 3 months now, but I had not seen it until recently. He actually rolled over FOR ME for the first time on Christmas morning. I just figure he was saving it for me as a Christmas present. Since Christmas he has become a pro. He is working on rolling back to front. He gets over onto his side and he wiggles around. Yesterday he went front-to-back-to-front (of course I didn’t see it) but he has yet to do a straight back to front roll. He is working hard on sitting up on his own. Often he wants to sit supported rather than lounging in my arms.

Leland is still working on cutting his first tooth. There is a spot on his front lower right that he has been working on for over a month. It has been extra inflamed over the past few days and he is really fussy about it today. So, it could be any time now (or not). I’m in no rush as I will miss his toothless grin and the way he tucks his lower lip so far into his mouth at times. It’s a really cute facial expression.

Leland started eating solids on December 24^th. It took a day or two to get the hang of it, but he is crazy about solids. He is now eating two meals a day at 2 PM and 6 PM. He takes 3-4 oz of food at each meal. This seems like a lot to me, but the research I have done says let him eat what he wants so long as it’s not making him sick or effecting his weight.

He has tried sweet potatoes, avocado, pears, and applesauce. So far he has mostly had homemade foods, but today I picked up several varieties of packaged baby food for him to try. We had wanted to try a baby led weaning approach, but Leland wasn’t quite ready with his motor skills to master moving the food from the table to his mouth on his own. He got very frustrated at his inability to get the food to his mouth. We are trying a modified approach using chunkier purees and / or mashed food by spoon. If he wants to “help” with the spoon, we let him. Hopefully when his motor skills catch up with his appetite we can try some of the baby led weaning stuff again.

Last night Leland did help himself to a sweet potato chip and actually at about half of it. I had missed lunch because I was in court all day and was snacking on sweet potato chips while dinner was cooking. I was eating with my right hand and holding Leland in the left. He grabbed my hand and put the sweet potato chip in my hand into his mouth. He sucked on it until it was soft and then gummed off small pieces to swallow. I was very impressed. Robert complained that he hadn’t been able to share his snack (a mini snickers) with Leland.

I absolutely love watching Leland explore and learn. Whether it  is with food or toys it is so much fun. We are truly blessed. 

Leland lounging in the Target shopping cart.

Leland in his Jumperoo in Christmas morning. Notice the box?

Leland playing with his Reindeer from his Aunt Susan.