Life with the Solomons: Cade is 6 months old!

Cade has been changing a lot this past month. He is a pro at rolling from his stomach to back but has also started rolling from back to stomach! We started rice cereal at 2 weeks before 6 months and he did NOT like it at first. But he is getting the hang of it now. Riley girl is still the one who can make him laugh the most!

We are on 3 naps still. The first 2 are typically about 1.5 hours with the occasional 3 hour one in there! He started sleeping on his tummy about a month ago and naps got much better then. The last one is a little cat nap so he can make it to bedtime around 6:30 or 7. He is still nursing like a champ and it is not nearly as hard the second time around. I just plan to continue nursing until he is not interested or milk supply starts noticeably dropping.

Second kids just have to go with the flow which he does most of the time except for when he decides enough is ENOUGH. This is when I feel like I no longer know my child. He turns into a terror who screams the instant you lay him down when he is supposed to be awake. Yikes!!

A few days ago, Cade was up screaming in the night for hours upon hours. I assumed something was horribly wrong with him, so I took him to the doctor. Dr. Sue looked in his ears and told me they were so perfectly clear that they could be in a medical textbook. She look at me and quite frankly told me that he was smart enough to start manipulating me and that is exactly what he was doing. He was perfectly fine but has connected that if he wakes and starts wailing that Mom will come a-running... and boy had I!! I fell for it every single time for about a month and a half. That's right peeps. He has not slept through the night since 4.5 months. He had a litany of events (croup-like cough, fever, travel, fever again). But Dr. Sue informed me...now is the time to let this boy CRY IT OUT! As always, I listen to everything Dr. Sue tells me because I absolutely love her and value her advice. So we shipped Riley off to Lolly and Pops for a peaceful night of slumber and settled in for a rough night. I closed all the doors to our room and turned on all available noise makers and told myself that I would enter the room once during the night to check for a poop smell and that was it (we have a audio/video monitor; why has no one invented a smell monitor?!?). I heard that boy once during the night and that was it. Because we have carpet in our bedrooms, it is hard to hear him with all doors closed. We are now through a couple nights of this and hoping he will just stop the hard crying during the night all together. How do people in apartments ever do "cry it out"??

I told my mom that this kind of stuff never happened with Riley (i.e. she must have been the perfect child) and Mom sweetly reminded me of all the issues we had with Riley. Oh perspective, how I have missed you!! This is why we keep a blog... to remember that our kids were never perfect.

Regardless of all the sleep drama, Cade is a charmer and coos, laughs, and smiles all the time (except when he is screaming his head off)! His one little dimple is to die for! Riley is just so loving to her brother (most of the time). Children truly are blessings from the Lord!

Official 6 month pic. Notice dimple of his left cheek!