#21 Half a year
I can’t believe that Jay turns 6 months old this week! My little boy is half a year old! Time really does fly. He has no teeth yet, but I’m pretty sure he must be teething because a few times he has bitten Stella and me. While you’re carrying him upright with his head near your shoulder he opens his mouth wide and really clamps down. The first time it happened I got quite a fright because it hurt a little. He has never done that before so Stella and I both think he must be getting teeth. It hasn’t happened to Greg yet, but maybe that’s simply because his shoulder is bigger and not quite “bite size” (haha) like Stella’s and mine. He is still eating and sleeping like a champ, but loves the fact that it’s so warm and cosy with Daddy and Mommy. He sleeps longer than I do sometimes.
We bought him a high chair last week and it’s SO much easier feeding him now. He can’t just race off between bites or get involved in some other activity (like pulling books off shelves) while eating. It also keeps the mess contained to one area and not spread all around the apartment. He is such a wiggly worm. Now when you change his diaper or clothes, you have to give him something to hold and look at or he just twists and turns and grabs whatever is around him and it’s this huge struggle. It doesn’t even have to be a toy – I just give him the container with the cotton wool in it or a CD to look at. He loves touching new things. Sometimes when I get ready for work I’ll put his high chair in the room with me and give him some things to play with that are just lying on my dressing table. They’re not toys, but I just make sure they’re safe and I think it’s good for him to touch as many things as possible. He is also able to transfer things from one hand to the other which he can spend ages doing and then he shakes whatever he has or waves it around in the air.
Now when he is in his room he likes to pull up all those colorful foam mats. He thinks it’s really fun, but will get super frustrated if one piece doesn’t want to come out. Greg helps him sometimes and the two of them will merrily take the whole mat apart and then Greg will put it back together later. Watching the two of them “working” like two little builders is pretty funny, though.
Yesterday evening was Kevin and Rita’s wedding and I hate to say it, but it was the worst one I’ve ever been to. It was freezing cold up in the mountains and we had to sit OUTSIDE. Then the first two courses were cold food like salads and sushi so by the time the boiled yams arrived I was absolutely starving and more cold than I’d been in ages. I don’t know why someone would organize to have a wedding party outside during the winter! Apparently it’s beautiful there, but the wedding was at night so it’s not like you could see anything anyway. It was 8 degrees outside and everyone was cold and miserable. Poor Jay had to be wrapped up so tightly and I even borrowed a sweater from a little girl when he started crying from the cold at one point. There was a main seating area that was slightly more closed off and that’s where all the family sat. It was way warmer down there. All the foreigners were put upstairs on this huge wooden deck and you had to walk down this small hallway and up these stairs. The floor was made of wooden slats so you could see between them and I was so freaked out because we were high up and just sitting in the trees basically with nothing below us. I can’t tell you how happy I was when it was time to leave.
And, while we were there just sitting on the deck with no real bottom and just basically looking over this mountain cliff there was this huge earthquake. It was terrifying and everyone just froze. The entire deck filled with people just started swaying and I just grabbed Greg and Jay and prayed to God because I didn’t want us to die. When I came back home and went online I saw that it had been a 6.8 which is pretty big. Although around a 4 where we were. Still, that’s pretty dangerous. At home our bathroom mirror was hanging askew and all the brooms had fallen down. More debris had fallen out of that place where they fixed the roof and there was water all over my side table because the water inside the bottle warmer that I keep there had sloshed over the sides and onto the table (and it had only been half full to begin with!).
On Thursday I tried some new food on Jay. He has had grated apple before, but I get nervous that some of the bigger pieces will get stuck in his throat so this time I cooked the apple first. Then I put it in the blender and basically made him apple sauce. He really, really enjoyed that.
Lots of love
Em x
(Snippets from December 2009)