Tis the season...

So much to catch up on...

Henry had his 6 month appointment on November 8th. He measured at 27.75" (90%) and 18lbs8oz (75%). Both the nurses and the doctor commented on how tall he was. Apparently he has a good chance at being a tall boy. He was very personable at his appointment and, as usual, everyone loved him. The doctor cleared him to start solids, which of course we already had.

He is now eating 3 meals a day of baby food. He pretty much likes anything we put in his mouth. At first he did not like squash or carrots, but now he likes both. I think, however, we are supposed to wait on carrots, so no more for a month or two. He has moved on to stage 2 foods. He has no issues with any foods to date.

The doctor also mentioned on the 8th that he would have a tooth or two popping through any day. I couldn't see it, but the doctor was right. On my birthday, 2 days later, a tooth started poking through. A few days after that, Henry had his two bottom teeth! I was amazed at how fast it seemed to go from nothing to two teeth.

He is turned into quite the crawler and explorer now. He is constantly on the move. His crawling has gotten faster and he pulls up on anything he can get his hands on. He has even started cruising. He actually has stood up for a few seconds on his own a time or two. I had him standing on his own for 5 seconds yesterday (don't worry, I was protecting him if he were to fall).

Diaper changing time has become a nightmare. He does not want to lay still. Instead he'd rather turn over, butt in the air, and play around with whatever is nearby. You can tell he has started to understand things, like when he can cry to get our attention or try to get something from us. He falls and bonks his head, we have to wait a few seconds to react. Half the time he is fine and keeps going. If we react to it, that is when he starts crying. He wants to be picked up for a minute or two then he is fine.

He is SUCH a boy, already! We spent Thanksgiving with my family in the Beaumont area (then went back to Houston). My cousin's daughter Hailey is 54 weeks older than Henry. Already he was trying to tackle her. We even got a shot of him pulling her hair. He tackled her more than once, and they both enjoyed tearing up Black Friday ads together.

He also met his new friend Edie as well the day after Thanksgiving. Edie is our friend's daughter. She is 4 months older than Henry and they got along very well. Edie is a very laid back, yet active, little girl. She does not let much bother her and enjoyed playing with Henry. It was so wonderful to see him playing with another baby. I so wish he had another kiddo to play around with. Soon he will. Our friend's here in Weatherford havea son 7 weeks younger than Henry. It won't be long where he will be crawling around and they can get into trouble together.

It was so funny how vocal Henry was down in Houston. There were more people than he was use to being around, so somehow this translated to him being loud. Lots of babbling and squawking. He wanted to be heard! His uncles thought he was crazy I do believe, but they also seemed to enjoy him. We can't wait to go back for Henry's first Christmas!

About to pull my hair out...

Henry is officially in to everything. We need to do some serious baby proofing and I don't even know where to start. I cannot get a single thing done anymore because he is into everything. I leave him for 2 minutes and in that time, he has tried to escape. Usually his attemps are successful. Then there is the constant whining. I am guessing he is teething. I cannot feel anything, but the doctor said he was teething 2 months ago. I just do not know what to do other than to be gone from the house all the time. That is the one thing that typically calms him down - being out. It has been rather yucky these past few days, yucky and cold, so that has waylaid some of my attempts to get out.

We have officially started Henry on solids. For now we are just using the prepacked Gerber foods, but eventually we want to make our own. So far Henry really seems to like peas, sweet potatoes, pears and bananas. He does not seem too crazy about carrots, but we will be giving them another try soon. For some reason, everytime we feed Henry, he tries to turn sideways in his bumbo (we're using that with the tray). We cannot get him to face forward! Best be going, he is flipping out for the 5th time today.

Henry the Crawler

At about 5 months and 1 week, Henry made the transition to crawler. He had been trying for weeks, but most of the time he would just end up stuck in the crawling position, and as I posted before, he'd thrust himself forward. Typically he just ended sprawled on his stomach. It took time, and he worked at it daily (if not all day every day, he is a very determined baby), and he finally got it.



Hopefully that worked - this is a video of Henry crawling last week. Every day he gets better at it. Which pretty much means he just gets into more and more stuff every day. We've had to start baby proofing, but really this is just us moving stuff out of his reach. We will need to do the heavy duty proofing very soon! I was reading something on babycenter about crawling. Most babies start attempting crawling between 6 and 10 months and are full on crawling by 9 to 10. Then, some time after that, they start going from the crawling position to the sitting position. Then, closer to a year, they can start crawling using opposite arm and leg, as in left arm, right leg, instead of one side at a time. Well Henry isn't 6 months yet and he can do all of this.

I hate even telling people this because I am afraid people will think I am bragging, that somehow my son is gifted. I don't think that at all. I am sure every other child will catch up and by a year he will be no different from his peers. He is also pulling up. He loves to grab hold of my hands and pull himself up. He also crawls over to me on the couch and uses me as an anchoring device to get himself into the standing position. I think we will have an early walker on our hands. The rate he is moving, I cannot imagine it will be another half a year before he figures out walking.

We have no started on solids yet, but we will very soon. I wanted to wait until 6 months as that is what our peditrician recommended, but with the rate that Henry is developing, we might start a little earlier than that. We have some rice cereal already to go, so we might just do that until 6 months. I know most people start earlier than that, but I just was in no rush.

We have his 6 month appointment in 2 weeks. Hopefully I will remember to update this then!

Oh yeah, Henry is going as a dragon for Halloween. He makes a rather adorable dragon might I say.