Half-i-versary

It's hard to believe, but little Miss Molly is six months old today! Her well baby checkup isn't until next week, but if our bathroom scale is at all accurate, our little pork chop weighs over 18 pounds. She's well into 6-9 month clothes now, but they are already none too big -- I think she's headed straight for the 12-month rack. No more teeth yet, although Molly looks awfully cute with her two little bottom teeth. She's still drooling and chewing on (almost) everything, although she seems to have mostly given up on biting Mom (at least for now). Unfortunately, her one night of good sleep didn't last and she's back to waking up every 2-3 hours all night long (yawn).

To celebrate her big six month anniversary, Molly went up to the hospital to get her hearing checked again (this time, Max did NOT go along). We weren't concerned about her hearing, but Dad's side of the family has some history of congenital hearing loss, so the doctors wanted to check her and Max out thoroughly. As it turns out, Molly has excellent hearing -- she could hear a good bit better than the norm for kids her age. Hmmm, maybe this explains why my kids are such light sleepers!

Molly has mastered rolling over and seems very pleased that she can move herself around and get the things she wants. She loves playing with toys and she immediately tries to grab anything that is within arm's reach. She's starting to get a little more stable when we sit her up, but her weeble-wobble butt still sends her toppling over after a few seconds. She starting to show some "solid food readiness" signs, but she'll need to master the sitting up first. I bought Max a new booster seat this weekend (which we have yet to set up), so we'll transition him out of the high chair soon so that it is ready for Molly.

Max has been a wild thing this last week. He finally bit through the Soothie that he's had since his NICU days. Thinking it was just a fluke, we gave him a new one, only to have him bite through it a week later (we went upstairs to find him sitting in his crib, staring at the broken paci, and crying). Although they make a Super Soothies for bigger kids, we thought we'd try going paci-less and see how Max did. Max only has his paci in his crib, but it's always been a big comfort thing for him. We held our breath the first night we put him down without the paci, but instead of raising a huge fuss, he just played a while and then went to sleep. Victory! (so we thought). Over the course of the next few days, Max started going to sleep later, waking up earlier, and refusing to nap at all. He didn't pitch a fit when we put him to bed, he just DIDN'T SLEEP. After a few days of that, Mom and Dad were so tired that we gave him the new Super Soothie that we'd had in reserve. I guess he wasn't quite ready to let go of his comfort paci, since he's been sleeping much better ever since (although he's still getting up way too early!).

Max's black eye is healing nicely and you almost can't see it any more. He's turning into more of a daredevil lately -- he's recently started climbing on things, which he's never done much before. He's also started trying to tell you what he wants. I always ask him what he wants (even when I know what it is) and he usually just says "again" or "please." But, over the last few weeks he has surprised me by actually saying the thing he wants -- he's asked for a hat ("haaa"), water ("waaaw"), ball ("bawl"), etc. It's too cute and too fun! Now that Molly is getting more mobile, he's interacting with her more too. He likes giving her toys (and also taking them away) and I've seen him try to give her sips of his water. He really likes it when she's playing on the floor and likes to get down there with her. Of course, you have to keep a close eye on him, so he doesn't rough her up. ;) I keep telling him that he better be nice to his "little" sister, because at the rate she's growing, she'll "lap" him soon!