Dear Charlie

Dear Charlie,

Today you are six months old.  That is half a freaking year.  You are the most.  chillaxed.  baby.  Ever.  It has been amazing watching you grow, but you must slow down, you're growing too fast! 

Last week we started feeding you solids.  We started with three days of just rice cereal, mixed with a little formula.  The first day you were quite hesitant, I think you wondered if maybe we didn't know what we were doing.  The third day we added butternut squash, and that's when the real fun began.  You were all over that.  Mommy's friend Shannon made you tons of homemade, organic, baby food. So you have your meals for the first month or so all ready to go. Butternut squash, then zucchini (which you just started last night), apples, sweet potatoes, and pears. You are lucky mommy has a friend like Shannon, because you will be eating better than the rest of us are for a few more weeks!  It's only been a week so far and now when I put you in your Bumbo seat you start licking your lips because you know it's mealtime! 

It's been a couple weeks or so now since you started sitting and now you are definitely a professional sitter upper.  You sit with your back perfectly straight, and with your feet, heels together.  It's kinda cute.  Sometimes you fall over, but only when Grace or Dad or Camden is in charge of you.  Mommy would never do that to you. 

Grace thinks it is time to teach you sign language.  I'm not exactly sure how that is going to work out, since none of us actually knows sign language.  But when I get ready to nurse you if I don't ask you if you want some "milk" while simultaneously signing "milk", she yells at me.  She also wants to teach you "bedtime," "all gone," and "shoes".  Shoes I get, the rest of it is all nonsense if you ask me.

I guess we have to talk about sleep.  That is the #2 question that everyone always asks about babies.  The first is, "is he a good baby?"  (are there really "bad" babies?).  Then they ask, "is he sleeping through the night?".  That's the other thing.  What does sleeping through the night really mean?  The books say that sleeping through the night means like 5-6 hours at a stretch, so by that definition, yes, you are sleeping through the night.  But if you ask me, sleeping through the night means I put you to bed at 7 and you don't wake up until 7 the next morning.  So, by those standards you are NOT sleeping through the night.  NOWHERE near sleeping through the night.  But, you ARE a "good" baby, and I actually don't mind nursing you in the middle of the night (as long as it's just ONCE in the middle of the night).  When you eat you always stick your arm straight up over your head, like you're pushing me away from you.  It's pretty cute, you should keep doing that.  Oh, and that biting thing, NOT COOL.  Even without teeth.  You should definitely STOP doing that.

A few days ago you were all snotty nosed and felt warm.  I took your temperature and when I said that you had a little fever Camden immediately started crying.  He said, "I don't want Charlie to die".  It broke my heart.  Before you were born, we had a baby girl, named Mina.  She was a beautiful little baby girl and she died when she was only six days old.  She never even got to come home from the hospital with us.  It was devastating to all of us, and I think it was exceptionally hard on Camden, because he didn't completely understand.  So he worried that if you got a fever it meant that you might die.  You're fine though.  You survived your first cold.  And Camden understands now that you're sticking around for a long long time.

Thanks for being the sweetest baby.  We all love you bunches.  Especially me.

xoxo
Love,
Mom