Half Year

Um, Kermit is 6 months old today. Yikes! The last general update I wrote for Kermit was at 3 months, so here is a many-month summary of All Things Kermit.

Kermit was an early smiler, and an early laugher. Thus, he's very good at it by now. This kid will smile and laugh at anything. He likes imitating faces, so he will smile back at anyone who smiles at him. He's very popular with the old ladies at the grocery store. (A woman in her 90s threatened to kidnap him the other day; it was simultaneously flattering and extremely creepy.) He's ticklish everywhere. He's bizarrely startled by Peek-A-Boo, but loves it when we just look away from him, then look back at him and say, "Aaaaa..... boo!" (leaving out the "Peek" part). He loves it so much that now he laughs when you just say "A-boo!" to him, which LL does all day long. LL got very excited when we read the Disney version of Aladdin and discovered that the monkey in the story is named Abu. Thus, Kermit now has a stuffed monkey named Aboo, and he is awesome.

Kermit can roll whichever way he wants, but usually prefers just to rock from side to side, and rotate in a circle centered at his butt. Kermit is obsessed with toes. At first they were just cool to look at, but now he knows how to chew on them, and that makes them so much cooler. He is finally coordinated enough to get other things reliably into his mouth to chew on as well. He sprouted his first two teeth at just 4 months old, so it's good that he can help to alleviate his own teething now. He still prefers to chew on Mommy's fingers, though, and those teeth are sharp! Kermit loves sitting, and can balance for several minutes at a time, when he's in the mood. He still just collapses when he gets tired, so we need to keep pillows around him for now. He also loves standing while holding onto our hands. And we pulled out our jumperoo, and he's so crazy for jumping that we need to ration his time in that thing, or he'd want to be there all day long.

Kermit is still waking twice each night to eat (once around 11pm, and once around 4am). We're usually still up for the 11pm feeding, so this isn't too horrible, but it would be nice if he started sleeping more solidly at night. The reflux medication has improved his overall eating a bit, but he's still eating the majority of his food at night, and barely sipping milk during the day, so I'm reluctant to do too much to mess with his feedings right now. He outgrew his bassinet two months ago, so he now sleeps in his crib, which we set up at the foot of our bed. (Oh, how I long to move to a bigger house....) He loves "talking" to the penguins and polar bears in his crib when he wakes up. (And yes, is that not the coolest crib set you've ever seen?) I can't complain too much about his sleep, because he easily goes down for three naps each day, two of them an hour long each and one generally 2-3 hours, and he goes to bed easily at night. (I will now spit three times and throw salt over my shoulder.)

Kermit loves music, and we end up singing to him all day long. He is especially a fan of Laurie Berkner. Luckily, LL has learned how to sing many of her songs, so he takes over singing to Kermit when we get sick of doing it. Kermit still hates riding in the car, so we play Laurie Berkner on repeat to try to keep him calm whenever he needs to be in the car for a while.

At his well baby check-up today, he weighed in at 18 pounds, which is totally average for his age but gigantic compared to LL at six months. It's even more surprising since he is still eating below the normal minimum number of ounces of milk for a baby his age. Poor thing must have inherited my amazing ability to gain weight even when not eating. (As opposed to LL, who is taking after S -- they can both eat their body weight in whatever unhealthy food strikes their fancy, and still stay thin.)

Every afternoon, while I cook and while we eat dinner, Kermit hangs out in his high chair. He loves being up at our level, where he can see everything that's going on, but he thinks that it's rather unfair that we don't share our food with him. (He will probably get his first taste of "solid" food this weekend.) Kermit has also shown himself to be wildly adaptable. Unlike LL, who was a fussy mess if one of his naps was ever 15 minutes late, Kermit handles schedule changes with a smile. And he has already spent a few days with Rosie while I was out on job interviews, and he apparently couldn't care less which Big Person cares for him during the day. Which I guess is a good thing? I'm still not sure.

Happy Half Year, Kermit!