6 Months Old

 Since I just did a blog update of Sophia, I thought I'd do a quick one on Ryan, who just turned 6 months old on July 7th. Over the last two weeks, he's learned how to sit up by himself. Look at those cheeks. It just makes me want to pinch them.

 He's so smiley! It doesn't take much to get him to laugh or smile. Unless you try to FaceTime with family--then, he's Mr. Stoic.

He loves to reach for everything within range, but especially food.  I think if we let him, he would eat non stop. We waited until Sophia was 6 months old to introduce solid food. Even then, I didn't feel that she was really interested or even understood the concept until she was almost 8 months old.

Not so with Ryan. He acted like he wanted solids around 4 months old. I held out until he was 5 months old and finally caved. He got it right away. He ate more that first week of solids than Sophia did in her first month of eating solids.

One thing I love about Ryan is how expressive he is. When he's excited about something (like food), his little arms go up and down like a little hummingbird. 

Ryan loves his big sister. Loves, loves, loves her. He watches her, gets excited when she's around (you can tell by the arms), and is always smiling at her. I wish I could say that the feeling was completely mutual. Where Ryan is concerned, Sophia's motto seems to be "We love with our hearts, not with our hands."

Sophia will get him blankets, toys, and his pacifier. She notices when he's crying and is concerned about that. But if you ask her to hug Ryan, she'll develop a sudden, all-encompassing interest in the wall or floor. If you ask her to kiss Ryan, she'll bonk  heads instead.  If you approach Sophia holding Ryan with the intent of having Ryan touch her, she'll cringe and run away. Sophia has been very slow to warm up to Ryan. But Ryan's a pretty friendly and good-natured guy, so I'm sure they'll end up being best friends.

One day.