His Plan, Not Ours: Owen is six months old!

I'm six months old!

At six months old, Owen was:

Weight: 16 pounds, 12 ounces (between the 25th and 50th percentile)

Height: 26.75 inches long (between the 50th and 75th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16.8 inches (25th percentile)

Eating:

Owen still drinks about five or six ounces at each feeding. He goes about three to four hours between feedings. He has started touching our faces or playing with my hair while he eats now. He began eating pureed fruits and vegetables this month (see previous post) and seems to like peas and sweet potatoes the best. We generally feed him about two ounces of solid food in the evening and will probably give him another solid food feeding in the morning soon.

Sleeping:

Though Owen had been sleeping through the night, he has resumed waking up in the middle of the night for a feeding for the past three weeks or so. We think that he is going through a growth spurt and needs the extra feeding for that reason. He typically wakes up around 3 a.m. to eat and then sleeps until 6:30 or 7 a.m. when he wakes up for the day.

I tried to gradually decrease Owen's number of daytime naps from three to two, but he didn't respond very well to it and I have gone back to just watching him for his cues that say "I need a nap." He becomes fussy and starts rubbing his eyes when he is tired.

We start Owen's bedtime routine at about 7 p.m. every night. This can mean we feed him one last bottle, give him a bath, read to him, or just snuggle a little. Then we rock him until he falls asleep. If we're lucky, he goes down easily at 7:30, but lately he's been fighting sleep until as late as 8:30 p.m.

Dad reads with the best voices.

Other Things I Want to Remember:

Owen is wearing 3-6 month and 6 month size clothing, but will soon outgrow them. We've started putting him into his 9 month size clothes and some of his 6-12 month outfits. They are a little too big, but he is quickly outgrowing the smaller sizes. He is in size 2 diapers.

Owen's hair is growing in thicker and is currently really fluffy on the top of his head. It's really cute. His eyes are getting darker and we bet they will ultimately turn brown.

My eyes still look greenish blue sometimes, but you can see the brown creeping from the inside out.

Owen has begun sucking on his right index finger. After finding his feet last month, he has recently become enamored with his hands. While I'm feeding him his bottle, a lot of the time he will hold his hands out in front of his face and just stare at them and wiggle his fingers.

Owen can now sit in his stroller without being in his infant carseat and enjoys being able to sit up and look around. We have started taking walks daily as a family in the evenings when Daddy gets home from work.

His favorite toys are his stuffed musical elephant and a Tigger stuffed animal. He really likes playing with some cloth blocks I bought for him recently. He also enjoys his teething bumblebee and anything else he can chew on. His favorite non-toys are cell phones, car keys, and the television remote. He plays a good amount of time on his activity mat and rotates himself around it to play with all of the different features. He has learned how to turn on the music and seems to prefer the classical music over the nursery rhyme tunes.

You can keep stacking these all you like Mom, but I'll just keep knocking them down.

He still enjoys having us read to him. His favorite book this month is "Are You My Mommy?" Now that he is teething, he often tries to munch on the corners and grab the pages.

Who needs Mom or Dad? I can read by myself.

Owen has had several "firsts" this month. As we already mentioned, he has started eating pureed fruits and vegetables.

Additionally, Owen has started sitting unassisted this month. He can sit for the most part now without falling over. He generally bears some of his weight on his hands on either his knees or the floor in front of him. Now that he can sit, he becomes frustrated at laying back and is constantly trying to sit up for instance when we're giving him a bottle or bathing him in his infant bathtub.

This is my typical half-squint face. It means, "What are you doing, Mommy?"

Owen has started raising himself up on his hands and knees in preparation for crawling. So far though, he tends to propel himself backwards almost like he's doing "the worm." It's really cute. Lately, he gets up on his hands and knees and shifts his weight forward and backward, but hasn't started crawling yet.

Owen "watched" his first University of Georgia football game this month.

Goooo Dawgs! Sic 'em!

University of Georgia Class of 2033.

Owen cut his first two teeth (the bottom front two) last week. They don't seem to cause him too much pain for which we are grateful. And they are so cute when he smiles.

Hey, how did those get in there?

Owen also got sick for the first time this month. He caught a nasty cold (as did Mommy) and is still recovering more than a week later. He is still a happy boy for the most part. And we have actually been a little happy because he has occasionally let us snuggle him while he's been sick. (Normally he is a very busy boy and has no time for snuggles).

Mommy better enjoy it while it lasts. Next week I'll be back to discovering the world.

Here are some pictures from Owen's six month photo shoot. As you can see, he is showing off his ability to sit up by himself. And he is photogenic. I had trouble deciding which photos to post because there were so many cute ones!