3-6 Months

Our little man is growing so much!  I cannot believe he is 1/2 year old!  He has grown and developed so much in the past 3 months!

He has mastered rolling over and sitting up.  (However, since he is sitting up now, he doesn't really care to roll anymore.)  He has mastered "da-da." He loves to stick his tongue out when he is really concentrating.  He has such a fun personality.  Very rarely will you see him without a smile on his face.  And it don't take much to get a big ole giggle out of him!

Parker also got his first haircut around 4 months old!  My best friend Amber did the honors.  He has lost all the hair on the sides and in the back, but the top is still going strong!  

Around 3 months we started feeding cereal to Parker by a spoon.  He done fairly well with it.  At 4 months we started baby food.  I was so excited for baby food but it just did not agree with Parker. 

He would eat and immediately vomit...everywhere.  We tried for a few weeks, and when it didn't get better, we stopped baby food completely.  We took him to the doctor and they said he had acid reflux.  Apparently, it is not uncommon for babies to get acid reflux once they start baby food.  Before giving him medication, we tried putting cereal in every bottle.  That resulted in horrible diarrhea.  Which resulted in horrible diaper rash.  Thankfully, Aquaphor cleared that right up.  So we decided to hold off on the baby food until his 6 month check up.  

Parker started coughing a lot during the night.  So the week before his 6 month check up we went back to the doctor.  The coughing was from the acid reflux, so now he is on Zantac.  While we were there, they checked his ears, nose, and throat.  Parker had his first ear infection.  We had no idea.  He had no symptoms.  No pulling the ear, no fever, no fussiness.  So he also got an antibiotic.  That also pushed his 6 months shot back until he finished his antibiotic.  

(At the Dr. for ear infection #1)

He finished the antibiotic this past Monday.  On Wednesday night he woke up screaming.  He screamed from 11:30pm-3:00am.  We were going to take him to the Emergency Room because nothing consoled him.  Finally, Darrell got him to sleep and he slept for an hour or two before screaming again.  We were at the doctor bright and early that morning, and he had another ear infection in the same ear.  I am still not sure if it is another ear infection or if the antibiotic just didn't work on the first one.  So, now he is on a different antibiotic and seems to be feeling some better today.  Once again, his 6 months shots got pushed back to next week.  It's going to be a rough couple of weeks for little man.

We are back on baby food again now.  Parker LOVES to eat...you can tell by his chubby cheeks.  His favorite baby food is mac and cheese with veggies.  He will literally cry for more.  He is my child for sure.  Mac and cheese is still one of my favorites.  He doesn't really like any of the green veggies.  He did until he had fruits and then the veggies were no good to him anymore!  We just started meat baby food and he is doing okay with that.  He also gets to drink out of a sippy cup and he thinks he is big stuff when he does.

At 5 months we conquered the crib!!!  I was so stressed about transitioning Parker from his Rock and Play to the crib.  It was not fun for about 2 days, and then he was fine with it.  The first night in the crib Parker cried until he threw up.  It broke my heart.  I laid in the floor beside his crib and cried my eyes out.  Darrell sat in the room too.  It was a family affair.  We got him out and changed the sheets.  I was ready to be done with the crib at that point.  I called my best friend Elizabeth though for advice and she talked me out of it.  So back in the crib he went.  He cried again until he threw up.  By this point I was determined that he was not coming out of that crib.  We cleaned the throw up and put him back down.  He went to sleep after about 15 more minutes of crying.  I didn't sleep hardly any.  I bet Darrell and I checked on him 45 times that night. Ha!  He slept the whole night though!  The second night he cried for about 10 minutes and was out.  No throwing up!!!  The third night the crying lasted about 3 minutes.  Since then, we haven't really had any problems.  Now, he doesn't move when we lay him down.  Moving to the crib, also moved his bedtime up.  He now goes to bed at 7:30pm.  He gets home from daycare at 6:00pm and we literally eat dinner, feed Parker, bathe him and he is out.  That has been quite an adjustment for Darrell and I both.  It's hard to only see your child for 1-2 hours a day.  Just a sacrifice we have to make because he needs the rest.  It sure does make the time we have with him extra special though.

Months 3-6 included taking Parker to his first basketball game, WFU vs Duke, his first Valentine's Day and Easter, his first football game (spring game at WFU).  We are having a blast showing Parker all kinds of new things and watching him grow and learn every single day.  Makes you wonder, how did we ever survive without Parker?