Six months

I am so good at this blogging thing.  Or maybe not.  Hopefully Gabe won't require therapy due to the second child syndrome. :-)  Steve's new favorite phrase is "If this had been Trey, you would already have had ten pictures (videos/etc)."  Yep, probably so!  Thankfully we still have lots of pictures of little Gabe, but I do want to be better about documenting things so that I don't forget.

Gabe's six month check up was September 9th, and he was right on track.  He was 27 1/4 inches tall (75th percentile) and 17 pounds 7 ounces (50th percentile).  This means that when both boys are in the stroller as I push them up the steep hill near our house, I am now pushing over 85 pounds.  This makes me feel a lot better about how tired I am when we reach the top.

Gabe rolled from back to tummy by himself for the first time on August 10, 2013.  Right at a month later, he started sitting unsupported for short periods of time, sits up on his hands and knees, and either flops himself forward when up in the crawling position, or he army crawls.  Mr. Mobile is right around the corner.  He's actually got blisters on the ends of his toes today (sad!), so I think I'll have to start keeping socks on him to protect his little feet.

I think Gabe's favorite person in the entire world right now is Trey.  Or the cats maybe.  I can make Gabe giggle, but oh my goodness, Trey can make him belly laugh without even trying.  I mean, Trey can just be talking to me and bump Gabe, and the laughs coming out of that baby are hilarious!  Trey's still not super interested in Gabe, but I think he does enjoy making him smile and giggle.  Gabe has started babbling a bit here and there - it's kind of a lower pitch and requires a thoughtful face with the eyebrows all pinched together.  If Trey is being loud (which really is always), Gabe has started yelling, too.  On Steve's last weekend off, after a day and a half at home with us, he mentioned something about a sound proof room in our next house.  He said it would be for the boys, but I think it sounds like a good place to hide myself!

We've tried a few baby foods - squash (eh), green beans (not bad), rice (no thanks), and peaches (please don't ever put that in my mouth again).  He only eats just a few tastes at this point, but he's obviously fine in the weight category, so I'm not in a huge rush to supplement our nursing.  He enjoys gnawing on cold apple slices and really enjoys bites of fruit smoothies.  Gabe is just crazy interested and excited about any food that we have, so if it keeps him happy at meal times, we'll let him take some tastes.  We've also started letting him play around with a sippy cup, and he thinks that's pretty fun.

Sleep-wise....oh, my Gabe.  God love him.  He's not the best sleeper in the world. :-)  Through the day, he takes two or three cat naps (half an hour or so) and a longer nap after lunch when Trey naps.  All I can say about that is thank goodness because if we're at home and both boys are asleep at the same time, I'm probably asleep, too.  It's not so helpful on the housework front, but especially since Steve often gets home from work after Trey's bedtime, the nap is the only thing that gets me through the evening!  Gabe's cutting molars though (no other teeth yet), so things aren't really getting any better on the nighttime sleep front.  Between that and the fact that Trey regularly wakes up between 1 and 2 am and gets up to come find us, Steve has just been sleeping on the twin bed in Trey's room.  If both boys are going to keep waking up in the middle of the night, my worries about Gabe disrupting Trey's sleep may just get thrown to the wayside so that we can stick both of them in the same room!