Dear Simon,

This week we celebrated your half birthday with a small bowl of rice cereal, signaling your official introduction to solid foods (we snuck you a bit of banana a couple of weeks ago, so that was actually your first taste). You have been watching us eat for a while now, and, of course, you know just what to do with a spoon. You are suspicious with your first tastes (it was especially hard to convince you to try pears), but you tentatively open your mouth for another bite and then another, and so it begins. A little side effect that we hadn’t prepared for was a return to stealthy pooping. Your daddy had to change an extraordinarily messy diaper yesterday--your second blowout of the week--and all I have to say about that is thank-you for timing that for when he was home.

I am beginning to understand why I’ve heard so many people say that six months is their favorite baby stage. You are getting to be so much fun--moreso every day, and I wouldn’t have even thought that was possible.

This month you discovered your feet. Most mornings I wake up to you contentedly playing with them, trying to get them to your mouth (because, well, everything must go in the mouth). You are figuring out your hands too--grabbing Mommy’s glasses is a big hit with you. You are so talented that you can even reach back and grab them when you’re sitting on my lap. Impressive, kid.

You’re not mobile yet, but I can see it coming because you are starting to scoot. If we put a toy just out of your reach, you will put your head down and pull yourself along with your arms/push yourself with your feet. Depending on what kind of traction you get, you can move a few inches at a time. Then you’ll lift your head up to check your progress and repeat. Lucky for Mama you are more interested in standing than anything else--and there’s no chance of you getting very far that way, at least for now. You love to stand in your exersaucer, or especially in your jumpy seat.

I love to watch you wake up from your naps. You are like your dad in that it takes you a while to shake off the grog. You kind of look around in a daze until you realize you’re awake, and then you always look a little frantic. I imagine that you are trying to figure out (a) where you are and, more important, (b) who is with you (see next paragraph). If you have had enough sleep, you are your usual agreeable self no matter where you wake up (Super Target, the library, the kitchen), but if you haven’t all bets are off. I think we’ve passed the stage of being able to take you anywhere, anytime. You don’t sleep through everything anymore.

You continue to be a cuddly baby, and the thing that really melts my heart is when you just need a little assurance that someone is near. Recently you were fussy on the way to Super Target, and Brook reached back and grabbed your hand, and you instantly--and I mean instantly fell asleep.  You nap best snuggled up alongside Mama’s leg on the couch--it’s the only time I get to blog (you are there now, in fact). You love when someone rides in the backseat with you or when Mama reaches over the crib rail to give you a pat at night, just enough to remind you you are not alone. I love that about you.

One of my favorite things about your emerging personality is that you are so observant. You will intently study a person’s face until she looks at you, and then you will flash that killer smile. It can be a little disarming. You will sit on your daddy’s lap out on the porch swing and watch the trees and the bugs and the cars go by for twenty minutes at a time. You are always gathering information, and I wonder how you’re organizing it all in that dear little head.

Perhaps most amusing of all, you have recently (re)discovered your voice and enjoy just yelling. A lot. Loudly. You don’t seem to be trying to communicate anything in particular--it’s like you just discovered that noise was actually coming from you, that you can control it, and you are delighting in the power. Once in a while you’ll stop and smile and give a little wiggle like you’ve just told a good joke and you want to emphasize the punchline. But mostly it’s just the yelling for yelling’s sake. It’s funny. (And speaking of funny, Mama got you to giggle, really giggle, once, but we think you’re saving the laughter as a regular habit so that I have something to write about next month.)

(This video is just a tiny taste of your “talking”; you go on and on and on. Also, the purple weirdness is why we had to get a new camera.)

You are such a joy. Mama loves you so, so much, little man.