Half a Year and a Half Bithday Party

Jambuca is 6 months old today. Six months is an important milestone-- he got to have "real" food for the first time (baby rice cereal) and everyone else had some half-birthday cake.

Since I've been so quiet in blogland lately, thanks to an insane amount of stuff going on at work and at home, there's not much record of what he's been doing the past few months. So in honor of the big half-birthday achievement, here are some highlights (nothing here is unusual for a regular 6-month-old baby, but I like to have a record of these things, and the blog is a good way to do that).

Jambuca is a very different kind of baby than his venerable big sister. Both of them are perfect to me, but I am glad that I had her first and him second, because he is one of those babies that fools people into thinking they're baby-whisperers. He's a parent-whisperer. I'm pretty sure he will get away with a lot more than e-baby will.

He's a very jovial fellow and laughs at everything, especially in anticipation of something funny or a tickle. Anticipatory baby laughs are the best. He likes to see himself in the mirror and busts out in belly laughs that seem to say "Damn, looka' me! I'm a HANDSOME little fella! WOO mama, look at me workin' it."

He's interested in toys, where "toys" are anything that can be grabbed and shoved into his mouth. Examples include straws, coffee cups, my hair, e-baby's hair, a nose, a shirt, a washrag, a teddy bear, a carseat strap, the railing of the crib... you get the idea. If he can see it, he'll mouth it. That reminds me-

He's trying so hard to be mobile. He can easily push up onto hands and knees, but for now getting to stuff is mostly a matter of rolling around. He rolls around a lot because while he can sit upright, and he can play with a toy, he cannot, it seems, do both at the same time. He ends up rolling on the floor eventually anyway.

He is also very, very interested in eating. When he got to try cereal for the first time this evening, it rocked his tiny little world. He made some faces that suggested he had NO idea WHAT had just happened or how to take the news, but he kept coming back for more food, so it wasn't all bad.

I've included some pictures of the shin-dig on Flickr here.

And here's a bonus video of e-baby singing to her baby brother and helping him with the candle.