Shoes, Meat, and Sleep

I had to take a picture of Monk in his cute little shoes. These are from like the 70's, but fit in right with the times. The look like little baby vans.
This is the best picture that I could get of him because the battery on the camera was going dead, but here he is eating his first little meat dinner. It was beef and sweet potatoes. It was really pasty and made everything orange, the smell was horrendous, but Monk didn't seem to mind. He ended up with a little orange beard.
Everyday that I am home Monk and I usually take a walk. Since we have been letting Monk cry himself to sleep he sleeps pretty much anywhere when he is tired. He actually fell asleep with his chin on the little table there, but I moved him to this position. What a little peanut.

Monk's 6 Month Pictures

You can view Monk's 6 month pictures by using this link https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTP74001013030JCP and putting my first name and last name in the name part. We also got some family pictures taken while we there. Hope that you enjoy! He was not the happiest camper so we are lucky that we got the pictures that we did of him.

CHEERIOS

Sleep

Last night Fisherman and I (well actually mostly Fisherman) lowered Monk's crib because he was beginning to grab unto the top railing and pull himself up. We just didn't want there to be any chance of him falling out. One of the things that sparked our thinking on this was that I began to let Monk cry in the middle of the night in an attempt to get him to sleep thru. Many books that I read and the doctor told me that at six months there was no longer a need to get up in the middle of the night to eat. After six months of getting up every night I must say that I was a little sick of it. So despite my worry I decided to put the kabash on it. It took only two nights, yup that's right two nights. The first night he woke up and cried for twenty minutes and went right back to sleep. The second night he did about the same and the third night he was sleeping soundly thru the night. It has been four nights in a row of blissful sleep. I am sure that there will be some times when he still gets up in the middle of the night, but now I know how to deal with it. The first night that I went thru, I was laying in bed thinking about all the bad possibilities. I thought that the blanket was wrapped around his neck or something horrid like that, but all ended up good. Now I just need to retrain my body to sleep thru the night and we will be in tip top shape at the Tripp Tent.

Monk's Well Baby Check Up!

Yesterday Monk went to the doctor for his well child check up. He weighed in at 15 lbs and 15 ounces so he is pushing 16 lbs. He is still on the lower end of the weight spectrum, but the doctor was not as concerned about it as he was before. He said that he is gaining weight and that he must just be a tall skinny boy. In conclusion to all of this I have realized that these growth charts are not something to get all worked up about. As long as Monk is hitting all the benchmarks that he should be, I don't think that we need to be concerned. The doctor also said that we could skip his nine month well child check up because he is looking good. So that means that we don't have to go to the doctor again, unless there is anything wrong, until Monk is a year old. Great news for Mom and Dad's wallet. So thanks for all your prayers, they seem to be working.

All in a days work

A lot of times when Fisherman comes home from work he brings Monk into the bedroom to play with him on the bed. More often than not I try to join them. It has really become one of my favorite times of the day because we are all happy and we end up spending some good quality time together as a family. Last night when this picture was taken Fisherman and I found ourselves engulfed by the sound of Monk's laugh. I turned to Fisherman and said as Monk laughed, "that has got to be the best sound in the world." "Yep," Fisherman said and then we both sat there and just enjoyed the sound for the next couple of minutes.
Monk got a new little outfit that he wanted to share with all of those that love him.
And finally the last picture from during the day yesterday, here he is taking his first bath in the sink. He loved it so much because he could sit up and splash with his hands and play with all of his toys at once. The sink is the perfect size for him. He really enjoyed his bath even though he had just had shots earlier in the day.

Six Months Old 8/8/06 - Monk

Tomorrow Monk will be a half a year old. How crazy is that? Everyone tells us that kids grow up in the blink of an eye, but we never really believed them until we had one of our own. He is starting to do all kinds of big boy stuff and is becoming a little person all his own. Once upon a time we were able to take things away that we didn't want him playing with and now he objects with crying until he gets it back or we distract him with the next piece of entertainment. Since he has started rolling over both ways it has been like roping caves trying to get a diaper on the boy. Fisherman found that if he placed him in the crib and turned on the mobile for him to watch over head that that worked out pretty well. One of these days he is going to go to the bathroom while we are changing him and we will have it all over the place. In the last couple of days we have given him
these cookies called wagon wheels. They pretty much melt in his mouth so he doesn't need to do much work. They are our best friend while we are trying to eat our own dinner because they keep him occupied for a little while. He has so much spit in his mouth these days that the cookies get all soggy and melt away. He is getting so close to sitting up all on
his own. We practice on the bed so that there are no injuries. He sits on his own for a couple of minutes before he topples down. I think that he doesn't have the patience to sit because everytime we try he sits for a couple of minutes and then he is off trying to grab the tag on the pillow or something of the
sort. He definitely enjoys the bath a little more sitting up. It is a whole new world out there I tell you what. To go along with his wagon wheel eating he has been drinking some water out of a sippy cup. I don't think that he gets much to drink out of it, but he sure thinks
that he is the coolest kid on the block doing it. Again another plus to this is that it keeps him occupied for a little while so that Fisherman and I can eat our own dinner or in last nights case keep him in the car seat while we had ice cream with friends. He is beginning to grab at everything so the longer we can keep him occupied in the car seat, the better these days.

He is getting so close to crawling. He has been creeping and slithering his little body from here to there for awhile now, but just in the last couple of weeks he has been getting on all fours and rocking back and forth. It won't be too long I don't think until my freedom is just a dream of the past. It looks like we already need to put locks on the cupboards and drawers because yesterday he was into those as well. He sure is a curious little guy. He seems to take after his dad that way. Like Fisherman, he will probably know all kinds of useless information because he is so curious. Each day is a new thing and not a day goes by that he doesn't make us smile. I can be having the worse day and little Monk can make me smile. We love you Monk thanks for making us laugh. -Dad and Mom

Uh Oh!

Yesterday morning I put Monk down to play in his room. He likes to be on the floor and play with his toys. He moves himself around and gets to the ones he wants. Well, I left him for about two minutes to go talk to Fisherman and I came back to this. He scooted himself all the way across the room because he wasn't in his "fort" when I put him down and got the garbage can down of dirty diapers. My days of wondering why it is so quiet have begun!

Crabby Baby

Last night Monk was really crabby. We are guessing that it may be from teething, but we don't really know for sure. So here you see Fisherman's entertaining him by pushing him around the house in the stroller. I wish that I could have gotten it on video tape and put it on the blog because there was some great narration to go along with it. Hey it made him happy for a good 10 minutes.