6 Months old

Nathaniel turned 6 months this week. Wow! He is growing so fast! And now for a little reflection from mom.... It's amazing to think about all the hurdles we have been over in this short period of time. I remember the challenges with nursing at the very beginning... wondering if we would ever make it to the 6 month mark which is the minimum recommendation for breastfeeding if you can (1 year is the full recommendation). Now it seems much more natural. I used to have to set up my "station" before the feeding began, complete with pillows both for me and Nate, a big glass of water and a burp rag. While those things are all still helpful I often just sit down and feed him without them. At the beginning I thought it would have been helpful to grow and extra set of hands during pregnancy... hey why not, my belly was growing! Now I'm amazed that I can strap Nathaniel in his car seat with one hand if needed and I can go from sitting Indian style to standing without using my hands! Ohh and the sleepless nights. Wondering if this dear child will ever let me sleep more than 3 hours in a row.... it's taken 5.5 months but we are up to 5 hours, sometimes 8! When we first brought Nathaniel home with us we had him sleeping at a cradle at the base of our bed. I would wake up in the middle of the night and start patting the bed around us and ask Ken where the baby was. His answer was a sleepy... I don't know honey, where did you put him? Every single time he was in the cradle right where I put him. Sometimes I will wake up now and Ken looks like he is cradling a baby (it's a pillow) but I'll pat all around and make sure it's not Nathaniel. Am I crazy? We've also become much more proficient at diaper changes (as my sis-in-law Amy would be happy to know!). The first few weeks I was constantly getting pooped on during the changes... I naively thought that if a diaper was off, no pooping was allowed. Hmmm... Nathaniel and I have worked through it and now it's a rare occurrence. I remember first putting on his little outfits over his head... it would take 15 minutes to get Nathaniel dressed. Ken and I were being so careful with his delicate little head and body. Now we can do a change in 2 minutes although I still see a little panic in Nathaniel's eyes when Daddy is doing the change and leaves the eyes covered for a few seconds. Nathaniel has always been smiley but over the last few months it's been fun to have found what makes him laugh. Our little boy is getting so big, we asked him today to not grow up too fast.