Calvin is in a stage of constant change. True, he’s been changing ever since he’s been born but now he seems more engaged with his environment.

Around September he obtained the ability to entertain himself for multiple minutes at a time. This was a revolutionary breakthrough Prior to September, I had to give him my undivided attention in order to keep him happy. This made it very difficult to do anything other than take care of Calvin. Now Calvin will sit and shake his rattle or happily play in his activity center for up to 15 minutes at a time.

You may have noticed I mentioned sitting. Calvin can now sit unassisted. However, when he gets excited, he waves his arms wildly and loses his balance. He also can roll from front to back and from back to front. This is a mixed blessing. First, he now rolls onto his stomach in his sleep. Calvin hates being on his stomach. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be awake enough to know how to roll to his back unassisted so wakes me up crying at odd hours of the night. Second, “tummy time” is pretty much impossible as he immediately rolls himself over to his back as soon as we put him down (now why can’t he do this at night!?).

We’ve also changed Calvin’s sleep cycle. He’s never been a good napper. On a typical day he would take three 30-minute naps. Calvin still usually manages a couple of naps a day but he’s started to drop his afternoon nap completely. One Saturday I tried to insist he nap (when he was obviously tired) and let him cry in his bassinet for more than 30 minutes before relenting. Soon after he started dropping naps, I decided to move his bedtime from 8:00pm to 7:00pm. This appears to work much better. I’ll feed Calvin his last meal around 6:30pm and then transfer him to his bed for the night. He sleeps the full night and usually wakes up around 6:30am, about same time he did when going to bed at 8:00pm.

I usually read to Calvin for about 20 minutes right after his first meal of the day. He has fun grabbing for the board books. Sometimes it appears he is purposefully trying to help me turn the pages (I’ll admit this is unlikely). Right now he particularly likes looking at books with baby faces. Some of his favorites include Where is Baby’s Belly Button, I Love Colors, and Baby Talk.

About a month ago, at 5 1/2 months, I started attempting to feed him solid food. He is not impressed with the concept. We started with the traditional rice cereal. I’m not sure if he just hasn’t lost his tongue thrust reflex yet or is purposefully pushing the food out but either way very little is getting in his stomach. When we had his 6 month visit his pediatrician suggested trying some fruits and vegetables instead. Since then we’ve tried carrots, sweet potato, peas, bananas, and pears without much success. Currently, I view the solid food feeding time as a very messy play time.

Just today I spotted Calvin’s first tooth emerging. It’s just a sliver of white against his gums and very tricky to see. However, I’m sure we’ll have some picutures in a couple of weeks.