6 Months

Daniel was six months old on Monday!!!

We had a 6 month well baby visit this morning and he is weighing in at 17 lbs 12 oz. His weight gain finally seems to be slowing down a bit, and honestly I am a bit relieved!

I was a little worried about him getting exceptionally large when we start solids (next week!!!!) especially since we will be starting with delicious fatty foods like avocado to support brain growth. Although Daniel is not sitting up unassisted yet he is definitely showing other signs of being ready for solid foods....like grabbing a banana out of my hand and sticking it in his mouth!! I doubt he ingested much, but he definitely got a taste! He also likes to watch us eat and will follow a fork or spoon with his eyes from the plate to our mouths. I hope these are all good signs that he will love eating.

A little blurry, but a good example of how Daniel is able to sit these days.

Daniel is still mostly on track with his baby milestones. The biggest difference I see (compared to Lily as a baby) in him right now is his muscle tone in his trunk. He is very unsteady and I think it will probably be several months until he sits unassisted. Lily was sitting as Daniel is sitting currently (and doing it better) at around 5 months of age. I have pictures of her from her first Christmas sitting just like this!

At the doctor we also decided to get a CBC drawn and a thyroid panel. Children with Ds have an increased chance of thyroid problems so it is good to get it checked out. After this we will get that panel run at a year and then yearly thereafter. We should know by the end of the week if all is well.

Daniel was not so thrilled with getting his blood drawn. We did find out that he has better veins in his right arm, just like Mommy! It brought back a lot of memories of vials and vials of blood being drawn from him when he was just a newborn. I got much more emotional over it than I thought I would. He was quite upset, and stayed upset for about an hour afterward.

Lily still cannot smile like a normal person. I have no idea what she thinks she was doing!

These pictures were actually taken before Daniel could catch a nap after the blood draw experience, and you can totally tell how tired and subdued he is just by these pictures!! As opposed to...

Nakie time!

...this picture from last night! He has such a personality. Everyone who knows him agrees that when he smiles, he smiles with his whole body.

Daniel and I met another milestone together today. He has now been exclusively breastfed for six months. I am so grateful that we were able to breastfeed. I have no doubts that this will benefit him long term and it has been so good for our mama/baby bond, especially in those early days when we felt like our world had been turned upside down! His OT has already seen some awesome benefits of breastfeeding when she was evaluating him in preparation for beginning solid foods next week. As of right now, she sees no difference in him orally from a typical baby. This is AWESOME and pretty much attributable to breastfeeding entirely. :-)

Daniel's mouth being evaluated by our beloved OT, Miss Susie.

As far as the future health concerns go, we are still working on getting his hearing checked again by the end of the year. I am also planning on pushing hard to get speech therapy for him starting at the beginning of the year. Although Daniel is vocalizing in an age appropriate way and we have no current concerns, I really want to focus on speech with him. I am honestly not too worried about the age he is when he learns to sit up/crawl/walk. I know he will do those things eventually. What I really want is to communicate with him. So we're going to be starting next year with that goal in mind.

These past few months have been a little crazy and I haven't really had the time (or the desire when I did have a few minutes of free time) to sit in front of the computer and make updates. There are still a few things I wanted to update everyone on, so maybe I will try to play catch up with the blog as soon as Joe has his winter break, starting the 21rst. My schedule starts to slow WAY down at that point!!! Love to you all!

Although Daniel isn't looking at the camera, I couldn't leave you without a good picture of Miss Lily!! Only genuine smile I got today for the camera.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 38-9