Happy Half Birthday :)

Baby Leon has been very busy before his half birthday. As if racing to "seem his age," he managed to grow a tooth, learn how to sit, expand his range of consonant sounds, try his first food and even get his first food allergy all in the span of about one week! So we have much to report in this blog installment. 

The tooth and first solid food went together. We got pretty lucky, actually, because all along we were telling Dari that he could not feed Leon anything because he did not have any teeth. So it was super convenient that when he was ready to start solids, the first sharp little guy peeked out. It caught us a bit by surprise but Leon insisted Mommy check out his gum one morning by grabbing her finger and gnawing on it, making sure she did not miss it. As if he wanted to explain a very rough episode at daycare the day before, when he refused to take any bottles and she had to run over to feed him THREE times! Good thing it was her fall break and she actually could. Much to our relief, Leon seems to be enjoying the new foods. His first taste was of avocado mixed with breast milk and he was a BIG fan. Unfortunately, it seemed to have given him a rash on his face, so Mommy promptly replaced it with peas. Those met with only lukewarm reception but it seems that Leon likes the idea of a spoon enough to get over that. On his actual 6 month birthday, Leon got the closest thing to a cake that there is for babies - oatmeal cereal. He approved loudly. So it seems we are off to a great start!

Having pulled out the high-chair and bibs again, Mommy could not resist taking a picture of Leon and put it alongside Dari's when he was the same age. Twins or not?

 The little fall break / tooth break incident aside, Leon has been having a good time in his guppy classroom, which is very warm and relaxing. Really, it should be an officially recommended stress-relief therapy for people to stop by rooms filled with happy babies each morning before work :). One such morning, they could be found posing for their "class picture." How cute is that?

 You can pretty much tell everyone's age by how well they are sitting. By now, Leon has gotten a lot more confident at that, although sometimes he still gets a bit too excited and topples over.

Besides documenting his gross motor progress the picture above also demonstrates Leon's super mellow and happy disposition. He is very chatty and often tries to get our attention, most of all Dari's. Unfortunately, Dari appears somewhat oblivious to the excited squeals and kicks and hand waving that Leon sends in his direction but that is likely to change very soon. The other day, when Leon grabbed a toy the right side up, Dari seemed very impressed and praised him with a "good job, Leon!" excitedly. Wait until he starts grabbing the big boy toys too!