6 months and counting

As of today, Jace has been alive for half a year. And Rod and I have been parents for half a year. We're not only surviving, but actually thriving! I'd say that's pretty good! In the past 6 months, Jace has gone from a little helpless newborn to a rolling, into everything active child. As I am writing this, he is entertaining himself rolling around on the floor and playing with an old plugger he found. He started life strictly nursing, now he is an avid eater, enjoying carrots, bananas, sweet potatoes, peas (kind of), rice cereal, pears, apples, and broccoli so far.

    He began unable to perform even the simplest of bodily functions, now, he can go to sleep on his own when he's tired. Sometimes he cries just wanting me to put him in the crib so he can go to sleep, he'd rather I didn't try to help him sleep.

  It was an accomplishment for him to hold his head up for a few seconds, now he can roll wherever he wants, stand with support and sit for a few minutes. Yesterday, I even saw him do two push ups!

    In the beginning, it was pretty easy to put him down and let him be content to sleep or just watch what was going on. Now he is much more interactive. He is a lot of fun to play with and get a smile out of, sometimes even giggles. I love tickling him to get a rise out of him. The other morning, I was making breakfast while holding him, and he was grabbing everything within reach. He grabbed the paper towels and worked on shredding those, he grabbed the bag of english muffins and was playing with those. This morning I took the toothpaste away from him while he was sitting on the bathroom counter and moved him off the counter only to discover he'd grabbed a washcloth and was sucking on it.

  Those first months, we mostly heard cries and some grunts out of him. Now he is quiet a lot less. He shrieks and screams and gurgles and cries and grunts and giggles and blows an assortment of raspberries and coos. He is very vocal now. He loves to be talked to and often talks while you're talking.
  He's undergone the most changes, but so have we as parents. I can get by on remarkably little sleep. I have gone from crying with helplessness when he cries to understanding what he wants to occasionally letting him cry when there's no choice. I can do a lot of things with one hand now. I have gained a lot of upper body strength. What an adventure! We've kept him well so far, I look forward to the next six months and accomplishing one full year of parenting. I think I just have one goal for the next 6 months--to get him sleeping through the night. We must be close, he slept from 2:30 to 7 last night!