Zach's 6 months old! (aka One Big Catchup)

Zach is half a year old, I can't believe it! The biggest change, by far, has been his mobility. He's now a full fledged crawler and he's getting to be really fast at it, too. I used to set him down on the floor by the desk and let him play with a couple toys while I worked on emails, pictures and such, but no more! My friend, Sally, documents weeks at a time rather than single events, and I think I'll be giving that a try in order to better keep up with what's going on. We shall see . . .

Besides crawling and being a general wiggle worm, what has Zach been up to? Well, he's down to 2 naps a day, sleeping from 10-12 and 2-5, generally and that's been a pleasant change. It has made it harder to get out of the house, though. When he was taking 3 naps, if he got a truncated nap or missed one all together it didn't seem to be as big of a deal where as now, missing a nap means missing HALF of his daytime sleep! But on the flip side, he's been fairly consistent with those naptimes and I have HUGE chunks of the day to get stuff done around the house. It's also wonderful having long stretches between feeding times for when we do get out or if I'm able to have someone watch him while I get out baby free.

Solid foods have been going very well. He has quite the variety built up now (since we waited about 4 days between introducing each new food). Avocado, sweet potatoes, bananas, butternut squash, acorn squash, peas, carrots, peaches, and apples. It's been fun to see his reaction to each one! Applesauce is definitely his favorite and peas his least liked. But that could have something to do with how dried out the peas were due to my poor cooking of them . . . hmmm. I haven't fed him anything out of a jar yet (with the exception of the applesauce. I just buy the regular unsweetened applesauce from the "normal food" aisle at Walmart and it's been just fine) and making the baby food has been so easy and so inexpensive. I figure that I do my best to make nutritious and fresh meals for Greg and I, why would I do anything else for Zach? And the cheapness factor completely won me over! I've been using this great website as a source for instructions and recipe ideas when we get to blending foods together.

Now for some pictures!

He's quite adept at sucking his toes!

And loves to read, especially the cloth books from Grandma Nancy, because he can hold them himself (we don't let him hold the paper books because they all go straight to his mouth!)

We enjoyed a visit from Aunt Leah, we yard sale-d and shopped Ikea . . . Zach was content to play in his stroller or slept the whole time we were out!

We got about 4 inches of snow! Nothing like our friends up north, but just the right amount for us. After 2 days of being trapped in the house because the roads were too icy to drive safely (and that was Mr. Pennsylvania who made that call!) I was so glad that we rarely see snow.


We had to put socks on his hands in lieu of gloves!

Starting good habits young, we brush Zach's 2 little teeth every night (that we remember). Normally we hold the brush, but I let him play with it last night after we were done with the real brushing.

Zach and Spartacus still get along, although we do have to watch out for Zach getting too rough with the dog. Spartacus does such a good job being gentle around the baby and not running off with Zach's toys, but Zach likes to play with the dog toys and has learned that if he yanks on Sparty's hair that he will run off and leave his toy behind . . . devious!

With crawling comes getting stuck! He was wimpering that he couldn't fit between the piano legs to get to his toy basket just beyond them. Then the camera came out and all was better.