Yesterday was the 6 month 3 week mark and a busy one at that. Mr. Chews a Lot was gnawing on my finger and I discovered an edge of tooth poking through the bottom gums. Big man’s on his way to a set of pearly whites! What’s a little strange is that while he’s still drooling plenty, it’s been enough of a reduction the past few weeks so that we’ve stopped the 24×7 bib wearing. I exaggerate– he didn’t sleep with a bib (usually), but you get my point. Poor kid’s neck had a everpresent rash under his chin and it was hard to clean and put cream on the area because it’s one of his zillion ticklish spots. So less drool…tooth pops out. Hm. Whatever. The pacifier has been of greater interest the past few days now and he has been ear-pulling pretty often while feeding. This has probably been one of the many distractions that makes his day time feeds so stoppy-starty.
Speaking of short daytime feeds and the related reverse cycling issue, the last couple nights have been a little better. In fact (knock on wood), last night I got a nice stretch of sleep from 1:30-6am. Of course, I still woke up at 4-something to check on him.
Remy couldn’t be in a bigger hurry to grow up. He wants to crawl pretty badly. How do I know this? Perhaps it’s the hundred-plus times a day he gets on his hands and knees(or feet) and rocks back and forth and makes every effort in the world to move forward. He’s got an interesting inchworm move that he’s developed where he gets up on his hands and feet like a push up from his belly in an effort to inch forward and reach some object I’ve placed strategically out of reach. Sometimes it works, although there have got to be more energy efficient modes of locomotion. I tried to get a video of the technique this morning.
He’s also got a new favorite toy, which is good because he’s getting bored with the exersaucer and approaching too big for the door jumper. Well, maybe not complete favorite, because a laundry basket with slippers or a stuffed animal inside is pretty cool too. This new among-his-favorites toy is a wooden block stack. Granted, it’s marked for 18+ months, but I figured what the heck, he’s wearing 12 and 18 month clothing right? Actually, the blocks are big enough to not be choking hazards and what’s the harm in letting his knock down a block tower and chew on a few pieces of child-safe wood? Turns out he loves it. Surprisingly, he even tries to put some pieces back together, although his fine motor skills aren’t up to snuff to accomplish this advanced task.
He’s also grabbing everything he can get his hands on to try and pull himself up to standing from seated position. Rocking chair, changing table, crib rails, legs, you name it. Yesterday I had him sitting in the crib while I was on the phone with my mother and he turns himself toward the rails, grabs them and pulls himself up without any assistance. Uh oh. Time to move the mattress down another notch. He can’t pull himself into seated position from laying down…yet. I found him trying to do that this morning.
Once he’s standing with his support on whatever he’s gotten himself attached to, he makes cruising moves to switch positions and move around. Most of these moves are well out of his capability to do this safely without Mom or Dad as a safety net, but that doesn’t stop him from trying some crazy stuff. I’m already anxiously visualizing a slightly older Remy scaling our built in bookshelves like a little rock climber. Dear me.
He doesn’t calm his climbing squirminess when he’s on our lap either. Oh no. It’s a full body workout just keeping the little guy from leaping over the chair arm, snagging a library book and removing your nose/lip/hair/cheek from his manly vice grip. He seems to be interested in putting my hair into my eyeball. Not sure what that’s about.
So, yeah, he’s a handful. Just wait until he’s really mobile. Like next week or something. My Mom asked me if we’re ready for him to be crawling, to which I answer, could we ever be truly ready?
He sure is a smart little guy (and strong). And I hear you on the being ready for crawling – I’m trying to baby proof but Zach is always one step ahead of me.
I think I noted he was doing push ups… but only from his knees.
No way dude. Those are totally full body push ups. He does way more of those per day than I ever could.