About a boy

I realized this week that I'm so late in posting Alec's six month update that it's almost time for the seven month update. I was waiting for his six month well baby appointment, which didn't happen until this week thanks to Christmas and our vacation. So here are a few notes until next week.

1. He is 27.25 inches tall, 21 pounds, 4 ounces, and has a head circumference of 18 inches. That's really quite large all around, maintaining his spot in the 90th percentile from two months ago. We don't really realize how big he is until we see him with other babies. On vacation, we met a five-month-old whom he dwarfed and a seven-month-old who was closer to his size, but still smaller than him despite being a month older.

It's a little odd when you have a big baby how people congratulate you as if it were your superior parenting that made him that big. Really, all we do is feed him, which is what any competent parent does. The rest is our obviously superior genes. :)

2. He started sitting on his own last month, but has really taken off with it this month, happily sitting for long periods without toppling over.

3. He has discovered the upper reaches of his vocal register, and the rest of us have lost approximately 25 percent of our hearing.

4. Aside from practicing his dog-summoning shrieks, his main form of communication these days is raspberries. He does them when he's cheerful and when he's annoyed. It's as if there wasn't enough saliva coming out of his mouth in drool, so he had to start spraying it around.

5. He's developing his pincer grip. Ask me how I know.*

6. We started solids this month, which he seems to be enjoying quite a bit. We're not being hugely consistent about giving them to him though, because I've discovered I'm just so bored with the spooning the pap into the baby and the bibs and the mess and the spitting. I just want to throw some food at him and let him feed himself. Sorry kid. That's life as a second child. However, he downed four ounces of pears mixed with oatmeal tonight, lunging and snapping at the spoon like a baby hawk, so I should probably work harder at getting him solids every day.



*He reminds me of an old Looney Tunes cartoon that was a guide to dog breeds. One segment went: "This is a doberman pinscher. And this is Doberman" Cue dog getting an evil grin on its face and making pinching motions as it walked off-screen, followed by a scream. Now imagine that with my nipples.