Dear Joe,

You are officially 6 months (182 days) old!  I cannot believe how fast you’ve grown up.  It seems just yesterday that we were bringing you home from the hospital.

You have practically doubled your birth weight and now weigh 18 lbs 2 oz (8.22 kgs) and boy, can we tell!  You’re squarely in 6 – 9 months clothing.  We still use cloth diapers and cloth wipes, although we’ve been doing mainly disposables on this trip to America.

That’s right – we’re in the USA!  Only 6 months old, and you already have more stamps in your passport than I had in the first 18 years of my life.  Such a little traveler 🙂

You love to practice your standing.  Must be all that time in the Jolly Jumper and now in the Exersaucer at Gramma’s house in Indiana.

What you don’t see is your daddy just outside of the frame, waiting to catch you!

We’ve also been working on your crawling.  You’re doing really, really well at propping yourself up and keeping your tummy off the ground, but you still prefer to do the army crawl.

You’re working on hard staying in a seated, upright position, too.  And you’re doing so well!

You roll over all the time.  When you were about 4 1/2 months old, you just took off and have been a rolling fool!

You’re into everything.  If it’s within reach, then you’ll go for it and grab it!  And everything you grab goes into your mouth.  One of your favorite things to reach for?  Your pacifier, of course!

We were planning to start you on solids once you were 6 months old, but squidged a little on that.  You were at the dinner table practically salivating while watching us, grabbing at our spoons, and letting it be known through grunts and yells that you wanted to eat!  So, we gave you a taste of food about 5 days before your 6 month birthday, and you love it.

Here you are getting your first taste of applesauce:

A little sour, but you came ’round 🙂

“It’s good, Momma!”

You are very verbal.  You yell and sing and laugh, you grunt whenever you’re focused on something, you make “brrrrrr”ing noises when you’re happy and content.  Sometimes, you wake up laughing and cooing – I love it!

I cannot wait to see what the next 6 months bring.  You grow and change so much every single day.  I love you, baby!