Dear Tristan - 6 Months

Dear Tristan,
Most children cut their first teeth around 3 months. Because your father and I produce some sort of vampire-hybrid children, both you and your brother cut teeth at three months. You already have the two bottom ones in completely and now are cutting 6 more teeth… at once. And now, no one sleeps through the night.

We went for your six month check up the other day and after counting your incoming teeth the Dr. said, “1-2-3-4-5-6. Wow! Mommy needs Tylenol with Codeine. Is anyone sleeping at your house?” At that moment, I could have sworn I saw a golden halo and tiny little fairies dancing around her head.
At the same visit you weighed in at 17lbs, and hit the 55% for head circumference and 79% for height and were pronounced, beautiful, healthy and strong. You cried for about 5 seconds after your shots were done and then stopped to gaze at the painting of a cat on the wall.

You’ve also determined that it’s more comfortable to sleep on your side or your tummy. I can’t blame you there, I don’t like to sleep on my back either, although that is the position that I assume when you’ve cajoled your way into the bed at 3am so that you can sleep on my arm. The problem with this is that when you sleep on your tummy you automatically push up when you come close to waking. This means that you wake yourself up, lifting yourself off of the crib, which seems to be quite scary. I reposition you on your side, you fall back asleep and then fifteen minutes later are pushing up again. Did I mention that we are sleep deprived around here? Learning to sleep takes time. But don’t worry, if you have even the slightest bit of my genetic make up… soon you’ll be really good at it.
You’ve now experienced sweet peas, green beans, sweet potatoes and applesauce. You’ve also had a goldfish cracker, (thank your brother for that), but never got to actually swallow it because Daddy fished it out of your mouth before you could fully ingest it. Some nights you still like a 2am snack, but mostly you sleep until 6am, (except for the past two weeks) and then can be coerced into going back to sleep until 8am.
Any second now you will begin crawling… but it looks like you are going to be a great swimmer so far. If they made a pedometer that you could use while swimming, (swimometer???) I’d buy one and put it on you to check your mileage at the end of the day. You are busy, busy. You are able to get completely up on your knees hang out for a second but then you fall over. And the falling over part… it doesn’t bother you in the least.
You have the 360 down too. You pivot on your belly stopping each 45 degrees to see if there is anything interesting. Anything that you might be able to grab. And put in your mouth.

You brother has taken it upon himself to be your personal interpreter. Sometimes when you start crying he comes over to me and demands, “MOMMY! Feed Tristan.” Or my personal favorite, “mom-EEE! Tristan is cry-ING”, over and over and over while I make your bottle. The other day you were crying in the car and he looked over and said, “It’s ok Tristan. It’s ok” over and over. You actually calmed down a little bit and I suddenly felt all warm and fuzzy. It was the first time I realized that you and your brother… you might actually love each other. Maybe even as much as we do.
Happy Half Birthday Baby.
Love,
Mommy