6 Months Old (and Full Speed Ahead)

The soft curves of his cheeks, the most kissable cheeks in all the world. The velvety feel of his dirty blonde baby hairs atop his head. The way he sleeps and sleeps and sleeps if he is snuggled safely in someone's arms. His gurgles and spit bubbles and squeals of delight. How he rubs his eyes when he is tired or purses out his bottom lip when he is finished eating and fast asleep. The way he kicked out his left foot over and over again just a week ago but is already moving on to those fascinating feet of his. The way he breaks into the world's biggest grin when I start singing to him, and the way he looks up at you with his big beautiful eyes, or how he takes in the room with those big eyes while he's being burped after gulping down a bottle. How he holds his Fuzzy's cup in the bath with his feet and breaks into a dance of utter delight when Patrick squeezes the water out of his "bath blankie" from above when it's time to get out of the bath. Oh, how I love these little things about our baby!

Our sweet boy is officially six months old, and time is flying by with no notion of slowing down any time soon. Benjamin is so close to sitting up and rolling on his own, but truth be told, he just can't be bothered with it all quite yet - he's just too interested in playing still. We've held off on starting him on solids; "food before one is just for fun" after all, and we just didn't want to put him through that with his reflux still acting up. That little annoyance certainly has improved loads even over just the past week, so I anticipate that we will start solids in the next month or so. I'll be honest: I'm not really looking forward to it because that means my life becomes a bit more complicated, and I'm just about full up on complications at the moment as I feel I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is! He's still in his bassinet by our bed, but he will quickly outgrow that and probably get moved into his crib in his own bedroom in just a number of weeks.

We had Ben's 6 month appointment today, and our pediatrician is thrilled with how he is growing and developing. He weighed in today at 17 pounds, 13 ounces (gained 2.5 pounds in 2 months) and is 28" long. That puts him at 56% for weight (hooray!) and 95% for height, meaning that he is still definitely on the taller end of the spectrum! There's no chance of squeezing him into anything smaller than 6 month clothing at this point, and the 9 month clothes fit much better, if I'm being real with myself. Our pediatrician also mentioned that his bottom teeth will probably be making their debut soon by the feel of it. I'm not surprised one bit by the way this kid chomps and drools about these days.

Benjamin is seriously just such a happy, sweet, loving baby. We can generally take him anywhere, anytime, and he's just along for the ride. This boy still loves to read books, absolutely adores being sung to, plays hard until he can't keep his eyes open anymore, and snuggles like a champ. He gurgles like Tigger still, but he's growing out of that and into more consonant sounds. He has just started learning how to give his momma kisses and it's the absolute best (albeit wettest) thing in the world! Both Patrick and I think that when Ben learns how to crawl (and then walk!), he'll be going full speed ahead. This boy is full of energy!

I'm not telling the world to slow down, to make my sugar baby stop growing so quickly, because I absolutely love how much he has grown and seeing just how happy he is every single day. Those first three months were rough. It truly is so strange, though, to think that six whole months have gone by since bringing our precious boy into this world. I can already see those little baby-isms fading away has he grows into a little boy day by day. I cannot even imagine how his already blossoming personality is going to develop over the next few months. Not a day passes when I don't think about just how glad and lucky and downright blessed I am to have Benjamin here with us. We love you, sweet boy, and cannot wait to see what the next six months with you will bring!