Six Months!

Ryan is days away from being six months old and I can hardly believe it. He is growing up so fast, and it is only by looking at photos that I realize how much he has changed since he was born.
Keith and I have been so blessed with such a happy and healthy boy. It is amazing how curious he has become about everything. We have entered a whole new phase! Ryan loves reaching out for things that he is interested in, particularly faces, clothing and jewelry! I have noticed this mostly when I am trying to put him to bed. Even if he is tired, he will start grabbing my face, earrings or scarf and then smile as if he wants to play. I can no longer rock him to sleep unless he is extremely tired because he just squirms and reaches out for interesting things. Which leads to my next topic, a favorite one....sleep!!!
It is a small miracle, but Ryan is sleeping through the night with zero interruptions. He is no longer swaddled. In fact, we put him to sleep in just his sleep sack with BOTH ARMS FREE!!! And he goes to sleep! And doesn't wake up in the middle of the night needing to be comforted or repositioned or anything! It is such a gift to know that he can soothe himself back to sleep when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He goes to bed at 6 or 6:30 and sleeps until about 6:15 am. We had been putting him down "drowsy but awake" for naps starting about 4 weeks ago, and he learned how to fall asleep on his own. About 2 weeks ago, we started putting him down awake at bedtime and usually within 15 minutes he is asleep. It is a beautiful thing. Of course there are nights here and there that he wakes up and needs us and I must admit that I do like feeling needed once in a while!
I can't wait to see how much he weighs and how much he has grown at our doctor's appointment next week. He is eating cereal and veggies right now and will start with fruit this weekend. He is still rolling over sporadically and is starting the "sniper crawl" when on his tummy. One of his favorite activities is to sit on a lap and look at a book. He likes the small cardboard books and will stare at the pictures and turn the pages back and forth for several minutes at a time...well beyond the length of time that his attention span typically lasts. Bookworm??? Hmmm.....