Happy Half Birthday Liam!

How quickly have the past 6 months gone?? It's hard to believe that 6 months ago I was in the labour ward welcoming our wee man into the world. The memory is still all too vivid!! Well Liam has transformed from a rather large newborn to a very large six month old. Our latest visit to the baby nurse puts Liam at a whopping 18lbs 11ozs (which is only the 75 percentile) and a huge 73cms/28.7in (the 98+ percentile). He's slowing a bit on the weight gain, but still seems to be stretching at some pace. The baby nurse commented on how well his development is progressing. She was very impressed by his ability to sit up on the scales mentioning that 99% of her other 6 month olds are still unable to sit up unaided. She was also very surprised by how close he is to crawling commenting that she has never seen a baby that young so ready to crawl.

Our Liam is a very pleasant baby 95% of the time... the other 5, well that's a different story!! He can be a bit difficult, but that tends to be when his is over tired so I can't really blame him. We're still doing very well with his weaning and he is showing interest in a wide variety of fruits, veggies and other baby friendly foods. We will be starting chicken and fish baby purees over the next week. I'm in the process of making a chicken stock from the carcass of the chicken I served for his 1/2 year birthday dinner (I had salmon, still no poultry or meat for me). All of his meals (aside from the baby yogurts, porridge and rice) are prepared fresh from organic produce. As I am returning to work next week (yikes!) I'll need to work extra hard to make up his meals in advance. Still no sign of teeth, although his has been a bit more irritable than normal so they may be in the post. He's making tons of new sounds like da da and daddy, but I keep reminding Ollie that they are only sounds and not his first words... I'm working on ma ma and mommy and hoping that will be his first word... think I deserve it! I'm trying to introduce a few signs- more, all done, eat and milk. I'm not sure how well we'll get on since I'll have to rely primarily on his granny reynolds and the daycare reinforcing the signs (which reminds me I need to mention that to the daycare).

We had a little celebration for him today. His Granny Reynolds and Great Auntie Annie came by for dinner and I made a cake. I still haven't mastered the art of a mean cake from scratch, it's either too dry or too bitter. I didn't feel like experimenting today so it was totally ghetto, straight from my home girl Betty Crocker.

For his proper 1st birthday I'll most likely buy in the cake... or perhaps, I will have perfected my cake making skills. Anyway, he received some lovely summery gifts from his grannies including a baby pool, a few pairs of swimming trunks, new summer hats and clothes. Ollie and I gave him a new walker and some very trendy clothes from Next. They are the cutest things ever!! He was a little confused in the walker at first, but now he's all around the living room in it.

He's getting very close to crawling and can manage a few inches before just dragging himself across the floor.He's also graduated from the baby shopping carts to the bigger kid ones since he is sitting so well. I love this wee picture! He's just so freakin' cute! He's always enjoyed going food shopping, or any shopping really. He loves to turn on the charm to the other shoppers and grabs for absolutely everything (especially hair and boobies). He is so strong and agile! I have to strap that sucker in tight because he's like Houdini.
I just thought he looked super cute in this photo. Such a wee poser! Ever so broody!
On the front bench with daddy.
And this is a terrible picture of Ollie (nice double chin), but I think Liam looks so cute!
So, our little fella is growing up big and strong. He starts daycare at the end of the month and I'm sure he'll have a girlfriend in no time... he was quite the ladies man at Baby Yoga! I'll post another update soon.