Half-Year Update

Owen is taking an unexpected bonus nap, so I'll take this opportunity to catch up with you all!

I guess most salient is that our little O-Doggie is one of those babies who's very reluctant to sleep through the night, and worse at napping. If he's in the car, he may nap two hours, but on your average day it's 40 minutes to exactly one hour in the morning and catch-as-catch-can in the afternoon. I am not desperate enough to stroll the neighbourhood for an hour every day to get that afternoon nap in, but let me tell you I'm getting close.

All the sleep experts say "sleep begets sleep" and so perhaps getting those naps to be a little longer will be the key to longer stretches at night, but right now we're talking one four hour stretch most nights and then threes and twos until he decides it's time to get up at six (we hope.) I guess he needs to start eating more during the day so he'll want less at night, but trying to convince him of this (either by not feeding at night or by offering more during the day) seems futile at present.

Some say that six months is a magic time for sleep training, so our fingers are crossed.

In less whiny news, O's a little man on the go. He's been sitting up really solidly for over a month now, and while there's still a tumble or two every day, he sits and plays for 15 minutes or so at a time quite contentedly a lot of the time. Mama likes!

He's been thinking about crawling for a while, but took a break earlier this month to work on some babbling. For a while he was all "ba! bla! Bla! da da da da!" but he seems to have moved on to gurgling and "goo!" these days.

He's still happiest on his feet, prefers the jolly jumper to the exersaucer, but likes most of all if someone will take him by the hands and let him practice walking all over the house. You heard me right! Six months old and he's already on the stroll. He's started to try to pull himself up on people's clothes, the laundry basket and the like too. Good thing his head's still a bit heavy for him to balance well or I could say goodbye to my ability to do other things while I play with him.

Yesterday my sister Sarah and I took him swimming for the first time, and while he was initially very apprehensive he had a ball! He likes being upright in the water and paddling on his tummy, but is still not sure about floating on his back. Maybe the water at Centennial is a little cold on his tiny ears.

In early September we went out to Winnipeg to visit Owen's paternal grandparents, and had a great time. He's getting excited about his Aunty Heather's upcoming visit, as well as our plans to visit Uncle Anthony and Aunty Kim in Calgary in November.

There are too many recent photos to post here, but again, drop in at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhia to see more than you probably need. And videos! I need to add a few more things today, even.

We're starting to think about the holidays here at the pickle house... mostly because so many Christmas presents need to get in the mail, but also because my childproofing plans need to include the tree! Owen's letter to Santa is getting put together in the sidebar over to the right, so if you're one of those readers who might like some ideas, you know where to look. For more general inspiration, you can also take a peek at the "Stuff We Like" links. The more I hear about BPA and pthalates, the more plastic scares me, so much so that I'm phasing out our disposable / tupperware containers for glass ones, so forgive me if we come across as hippies with all our wooden toys. Sometimes it seems like the old fashioned stuff that was going out of favour when we were kids was a better idea. What can you do? In any case, Owen's favourite toys right now are a stainless steel bowl, and any paper he can get his hands on, so probably we could give him the boxes toys come in and call it a day.

Kisses to all from the little man!