Happy Half Birthday to Cole!

At the end of October, Cole turned six months old. This little boy has certainly been through a lot in the last six months. When Cole was about four weeks old, we started to notice that Cole was experiencing digestive difficulty. After five months of testing, we uncovered an allergy to peanuts and a severe case of GERD. Thankfully, things seem to be getting better! Cole has been thriving lately (he weighed in at 18.5 lbs at his six month checkup). Here are some milestones we've been proud to celebrate with our trooper of a little boy:

- Cole can roll from his back to his belly and from his belly to his back.

- Cole started eating solid foods! He currently enjoys pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots, and sweet potato. Next on the menu is acorn squash and then green beans.

- Cole can sit up unassisted for about 30 seconds at a time. We're crossing our fingers that he can sit up for his Christmas picture.

- Cole can scoot backwards.

- Cole can get up on all fours and rock.

- Cole recently tried a Cheerio. He's not quite ready, so we'll try again in a couple weeks.

- Cole can grab his binky and put it in his mouth (about 60% of the time).

Cole's puking has decreased significantly. He still pukes after almost every meal, but the amount has decreased and he's not in pain. For him, the "right" combination of medication seems to be Prevacid, Pepcid, and Gaviscon.

In other news, Sydney really spoiled me when it came to sleep. To this day, she's still a very good sleeper. As for Cole - we're still working on things. For the longest time, he'd wake up (and not go back to sleep) after 40 minutes. Now, we're slowly getting on a decent schedule with three predictable naps: usually a 40-minute nap in the morning, a 90-minute nap in the afternoon, and a 40-minute nap in the late afternoon. His morning nap has been as long as 90 minutes and his afternoon nap has been as long as two hours! At night, Cole usually sleeps from 7:30 pm to 6:15 am with a feeding around 2:30 am.

We have come so far. Happy half birthday Cole!