Osland Baby: 6 months!!! (26 weeks & 1 day)

Wow, 6 month (1/2 a year) has gone by so quickly. My little guy is growing like crazy and I love him more each day. Julian Edward is a strong willed, cuddly little baby who is trying to be a toddler as quickly as possible. Sleep has not been our friend recently, as my previous posts have described, but last night, out of the blue, he slept 7 hours in a row.

I changed a couple of things. I put a sleeper on him that doesn't have feet. He's so long, that I wondered if those were frustrating him. I did swaddle him after comforting him 4 times (waking every 20 min) and then he "slept like a baby" for 7 hours. This morning was a bit rough since he peed through and the nasal congestion was a lot since our humidifier stopped working. I hope he feels well soon so he can sleep. I'm sick too and have to work tomorrow night, so I'm hoping for sleep and feeling better too.

New things:

My favorite thing that Julian can do now is turn pages in his board books! It is the cutest thing ever and I need to get it on video. He cracks me up. Sometimes he lingers on a page and other times he turns it before I finished reading the page. He's my little nerd and I love him!
My other favorite this is that he is trying so hard to say words. Yes, I know it is too early, but when he babbles, he is trying to force certain sounds. Dan got a LONG video of it today, so I'll have to figure out how to trim it. He says "da, da, da, da, dy", "ga" "goo" and lots of P and B sounds like "papa" and "baby" and "blue". I know he doesn't know what these mean, but he is so proud of himself when he gets certain sounds out.
He can bounce in the johnny jump up! It took 2 months, but he still won't in the activity center.
He can trumpet like an elephant and roar/grrrr like a lion or bear. I have so many books with animals in them and I do all the sounds! It is so fun to see his excitement with animal sounds.
He has regressed at sitting up. I heard that as babies grow, they will reach big milestones and then regress in another area. He doesn't enjoy sitting up anymore. He lies down pretty much right away.
He is inching! No, he's not crawling, but he's inching like an inch worm. He can roll both ways to get wherever he wants and then a couple of days ago he started inching around. He puts his butt way up in the air and sometimes takes a face plant and then pushes himself forward. It's another thing that I need to get on video.
He might know his name. Julian will not make eye contact if you're too close to him, unless I'm reading him books. He will look when I say his name. Speaking of that. We're really starting to see his will and I've been using his middle name with a stern tone to express my displeasure.
He squeals...boy does he squeal. He squeals when he's happy; he squeals when he's mad. He squeals when his tummy is gassy. It is so high pitched and annoying that I have to laugh to not get really annoyed.
He loves to sing. He will sing along with me or the radio/CD. If there is an "Oh" or "Ah" part in the song, he'll do it and if I sing quietly (not my norm), he'll sing quietly. He loves music and I'm sad to say, he likes the cheesy children's music. I was hoping to bypass this stuff, but nope, he likes it. I'm thankful that Spotify has it and I don't have to buy it.
Julian loves the outdoors. It doesn't matter how upset or overtired he is, if I take him outside, he is tranquil. I am not enjoying the cooler weather, but I have to make sure I take him for walks since he loves it.
He went swinging and liked it! I have a little video of him swinging at the park. He had a "I'll tolerate this mom" look on his face which was cute.
His skin is still bad. I use hydrocortisone daily. Shame on me, but it's awful and so itcy for him if I don't. Speaking of, I've given him a little more rice cereal and bananas and the rice cereal made his face break out where it touched the skin. Well, the skin around his eyes was all rashy too, so I've decided to not give him anything for a week and try banana at another time, but no more rice cereal.
He did have meat yesterday at the Brazilian Restaurant, Fogo de Chão. It was medium, so he sucked most of the pink from the meat, so he hopefully got some iron from that. The lactation consultant said that it's good to give red meat for iron. He also needs zinc, so I'll have to look up what is high in zinc. We're doing a mix of purees and solids, plus I have a few mesh feeders for anything that makes me nervous.
He loves people, but he's getting overstimulated quite easily. He looks at people very seriously now, but if they do any funny face, he'll give them a smile with his tongue sticking out like today's 6 month photo
He has separation anxiety pretty badly. He starts crying when I stand up because he knows I'll leave the room.
He transfers objects from each hand really well
He loves hitting things. I am so scared that I have a drummer. He loves to bang and likes drum sounds.
Julian loves the following books: