Hello friends! It's so hard to make the time to sit down and write a blog lately! Camden is crawling now which means he is into eeeeverythinggg! Even when he's having some solo playtime I still need to keep a watchful eye on him to make sure he doesn't eat my flip flops or anything equally as disgusting, haha (yeah, it happened). Obviously I never leave him completely unsupervised. It's just that now he's starting to require a little more watching. And he still isn't much of a napper so I don't get much downtime during naptime. He's quite a handful these days but gosh is he FUN! He's 6 1/2 months old now so I guess I should take the time to recap some of his developments (this might take a few sessions, haha)...
- Like I said, he's crawling now! He started scooching (is that a real word? haha) around a couple months ago and has not stopped moving since! He hasn't perfected his real crawl yet but he is a master at the Army crawl. He's mighty good at getting around these days!
- Still no teeth!! He's been teething forever. For. Ev. Er. But seriously, Camden is drool city, stuffs anything and everything into his mouth (including my flip flops, mommy fail), and gets really fussy while grabbing at his mouth. He has all the signs of teething, some days worse than others, but he has yet to cut a tooth. Part of me is happy because I loooove his gummy little grin! But another part of me just wants him to cut a tooth already and get some relief. I feel bad for him!
- Camden has perfect hips. I know, this sounds so weird and random, haha. But at his 4 month well-visit his pediatrician told us that the fat folds on Camden's legs were asymmetrical which could be a sign of hip dysplasia. He said it was rare and I shouldn't worry about it but c'mon, I'm a mom now! I worry about everything having to do with my son's health and well-being. We had an ultrasound done to check everything out and were told that his hips are perfect! And he was a total champ during the ultrasound, he didn't fuss one bit. Yay for good news!
- We started Cam on some real food after he turned 6 months old. We were told we could start at his 4mo visit but I wanted to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months. The first food we tried was baby oat cereal. He wasn't a big fan. We fed it to him for a few days and he really didn't enjoy it. So we took a little time off from the real food before deciding to try avocado. He wasn't a fan of that, either. Avocado mixed with oat cereal and breastmilk? Nope. Didn't like it. Then this week I decided to make homemade applesauce (simmered all day in the Crock Pot!) and mix that with oat cereal and breastmilk. WIN! He loved it!! He couldn't eat it fast enough! He was diving and reaching for the spoon, fussing at me while I paused to reload the spoon, and basically just going crazy for this new concoction! It was awesome. I was sooo happy to see him actually enjoying real food! I don't blame him, I love apples, too. He also loves to chew on chunks of apples in his handy little mesh teether things. It's safe to say that apples are his favorite real food at this point :]
- He absolutely loves being outside! My mom and I take a walk with Camden in the stroller just about every morning. He usually stays awake for about 20 minutes then naps until we stop. He loves looking around and listening to our conversations. It's so cute. I'm going to be in trouble once the cold weather sets in and we can't walk outside anymore!
- Camden's motor skills never cease to amaze me! It's like he learns something new everyday! He passes toys between hands very easily now. He grabs his feet and hair all the time. Actually, mister sticky fingers will grab anything he can get his hands on! He's also starting to clap which is beyond adorable.
- Camden's baby talk gets better everyday, too! He says "mama" "ada" "baba" and a range of other sounds. Even though he doesn't really know that I'm "mama" and Jake is "ada", it still melts our hearts to hear him say it! Lately he has started making singing sounds, too. We sing to him/play music for him a lot. The past couple weeks at church he has made sounds like he's singing along to worship! It's beautiful and we all love listening to him!
- He's learned to reach up when he wants to be picked up. I wanted him to learn this early on because I think it's adorable and helpful. So when he started to get better control over his arms I tried to teach him to reach when he wants to get picked up. I reinforced it by picking him up every time he reached for me. Now he has made the connection and reaches when he wants to be picked up! It's nice because it lets us know if he's done playing and wants to be picked up when he gets fussy or is he's just frustrated about something.
- He can sit up now! He isn't the best at sitting up on his own but he's getting better everyday! For awhile we would hold him in a supported seated position until he was strong enough to stay sitting up on his own. He doesn't stay seated for very long but I think that's mostly because he prefers to be on his belly so he can crawl around. I'm waiting for him to learn to pull himself up to sitting from his belly but that hasn't happened quite yet. I'm impressed at how strong he is and how much he can do!
- At his 6 month check-up he was 27.75" long and 16lbs 10oz! He's in the 90th percentile for height/length and the 40th for weight. He's so long and lean! I'm sure he's over 17lbs now. The little guy is getting heavy, haha.
- He loves to log roll. Everywhere. Before he was a champ Army crawler, Camden's preferred method of getting around was log/barrel rolling. He'd just roll himself from one end of the room to the other, haha. It was very funny to watch! He still rolls around a lot but he favors crawling at this point.
- Camden is getting better at nighttime sleeping. No, he still doesn't sleep through the night. But he will give me a long stretch of sleep (4-6 hours) almost every night (technically, 5hrs is sleeping through the night so I guess he does some nights!). The only reason he wakes up is to nurse most nights. I mean obviously babies wake up for other reasons- gas, teething pain- but for the most part he's really maturing in his sleep habits! And the best part is, we haven't resorted to cry-it-out at all! I'm really happy with the way we've been able to handle Camden's high-needs with his sleep. We're still working on the napping aspect of his sleep. Boy, does Cam like to fight every nap and make it as short as possible! Haha.
- Overall, Camden is an extremely happy baby! He's so smiley! And he laughs all the time. It's beautiful. His personality is showing more and more these days and we love it. He laughs at things he finds funny, like silly faces and noises. He's super curious and tries to touch everything he can reach, and usually put it in his mouth as well. He's just so in-tune to everything around him. It's really neat to see! He's growing into this amazing, inquisitive, adventurous boy right in front of our eyes!!
This is all that I can think of right now. Camden is truly a tremendous blessing and I thank God for him everyday! Some days I feel sad that he's growing up so quickly but I'm cherishing the moments and every stage with our sweet boy. Time is a precious thing. I'm thankful for all the time I get to spend with my son! Now I will leave you with the most perfect picture ever of my pumpkin patch baby :]
(Three days! This took me three days worth of here-and-there blogging sessions, haha. And the last bit was typed one-handed while Camden sleeps on me. Oh I sure do love being a momma!)
