Solids!

Now that Nick is six months old, we have ventured into the realm of solid foods. Today was the first attempt. Nick's first solid food: brown rice cereal. We bought a pre-ground brown rice from the store (which looks like beige fish food in its dry state) and mixed it with a little bit of milk until it had the consistency of oatmeal soup. We only prepared a teaspoon or two, because his stomach is still pretty tiny.

Nick has been playing with plastic spoons for the past few weeks, so he was happy to see the spoon heading towards his face. He "goal-tended" by swiping at the spoon with his arms, so Dad had to hold his hands down to make way. When we finally got the spoon into his mouth, he was a little bit confused, but he ended up eating the cereal. He took down every other spoonful - he drooled out the rest of them.

By the end of the feeding, he was enjoying himself (which made it more difficult). He would open his mouth, bite down on the spoon, and then laugh and blow out air, which would spray the food back out again. Good thing he was wearing a bib!

We'll keep doing one meal a day with the cereal, for about a week or so, before we start introducing more fun things like veggies and fruits. Will post the progress.

Here is a picture of Nick with food on his face.

His Daddy's son

It's official: Nick is mobile! A few days ago, he started seriously scooting inch-worm style across the floor, maybe making it a foot or two before stopping. In the past few days, the inch-worm has developed into a full-on commando crawl. He starts out by reaching his hands as far forward as he can, Superman style, then pushes with his legs until his body scoots forward. He doesn't take his belly off the ground, preferring to drag it along with him.

We quickly found that Nick crawls the fastest if we place the Playstation controller a few feet in front of him. He scoots forward until he can get it to his mouth. Though he has not yet mastered the art of gaming, he definitely is interested in the game controller (definitely his Daddy's boy!).

Not only that, he also has discovered the power cords that snake across the floor and plug into our computers/ipad/cell phones/controllers. He has enough dexterity to grip the cord and pull (consequently unplugging) it. Must keep an eye on this one...

Mr. Kicks-a-Lot

Baby Nick is quite the kicker! This comes as no surprise to his mom, who experienced five-ish months of rib- and bladder-kicking while he was in utero. Now that he is bigger and stronger, he loves to kick and kick and kick and kick... when you hold him up in the air, it sometimes looks like he is running in place.

Sometimes it can be dangerous... This morning when I leaned over to kiss my baby on the cheek, he pumped his legs around and kicked me right in the eyeball with his little heel.

This afternoon I was clipping his teeny tiny toe nails (they grow SO fast), and I noticed a blister on one of his toes. It was a tiny blister, but a blister nonetheless! No doubt due to his extensive foot-use. I can only imagine how it will be when he really starts walking.

Keep a close watch!

A six month post is forthcoming (hard to believe that my little boy is already half a year old!), but I thought I would start posting smaller mid-month posts now that he is more active and, consequently, more interesting.

Nick is now rolling both front-to-back and back-to-front, and he can also scoot himself like a little inch worm when he is on his belly. As a result, he can now propel himself from one location to another, though he usually stays within a one foot radius of where he started out. Crawling is imminent.

This afternoon, I am checking my email while the baby is playing on his mat with his toys. I look away for one second (seriously, just one second), and when I look back at him, he has rolled to the edge of the play mat and is happily gumming the strap of my EXTREMELY nice Coach purse. Yikes! I explained to him that purses are not for teething, but I don't think he got the message...