These are a few of my favorite things...

This boy.

This boy is 6 months old today.  Can you believe it?  I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the (usual) already/only 6 months paradox.  What a crazy ride.

A crazy sleepless ride, as of late (like, the last month or so).  I'm thinking (hoping?) teething, and when that little bugger pops through we're going to go straight to 6 hour stretches at night (do I dream big or what? but that is seriously my idea of an awesome night).

We're working on solids... sort of.  Liam is not a fan.  Actually he doesn't seem to mind the bananas and sweet potatoes so very much, but he is decidedly not a fan of the spoon unless he gets to hold it.  Perversely he wants nothing to do with one of my favorite inventions ever, the mesh teether.  He's still nursing like a champ and obviously not wanting for lack of nourishment (um, did you see those cheeks in the first picture?) so we're not particularly concerned about his lack of interest in big people food.  M loved pretty much all food from the first taste of bananas at 5 months, but with L I'm thinking we may take a much more laid-back, baby-led weaning approach.

He's been a bit fussier than usual today (again, blaming the still invisible tooth), but generally he is just the happiest little guy.  Like this:

In addition to being tickled, Liam's other favorites include his jumper, the changing table, chewing on anything other than food, and his brother.  Here's his diaper dance:

And this boy.

As discussed before, nap time is always a favorite.  Well, always a favorite for me.  Overall Michael is a great napper, but every now and then (and for really rough weeks sometimes a couple days in a row) he will flat out refuse to nap.  But last week I had a ton I needed to get done for work, and even though I knew it was going to be a napless day (after over an hour of listening to M sing and play in his crib, despite multiple attempts on my part to settle him down and get him to close his eyes and give the nap a chance) I just left him in his crib so I could get my work done.  Liam was sleeping, and Michael was more or less happy, and I needed nap time.  After a while I realized I wasn't hearing any noises from M's room any more, so I stuck my head in to make sure he wasn't up to any mischief, and the above picture is what I found.  He had thrown everything except his pillow out of his crib, and eventually fell asleep under his pillow.  What a lovely surprise.

This week Michael has decided he has had enough of a Mama who tries to finish the sentence (or two, I'll admit) she is reading before responding to whatever incredibly important thing he is saying.  Michael's newest way to get my attention: Mama!  MAMA!  OOO-HOOO!   And now he'll do it forever because I've thoroughly positively reinforced the behavior by laughing my head off the first time he did it.

Puzzles are another current favorite with the big boy.  Michael + puzzles = so much fun.  He has thoroughly mastered his two Thomas puzzles, so we broke out some new ones this week.  Here's a video of him putting one of them together pretty much all by himself.  The whole thing takes a little over ten minutes, but the first minute or so will give you the general idea (find it? fit? fit? no... find it!)

Love my boys so much... even with all of the ooh-hoos! and non-sleeping.  Thank you Lord for these little boys! :)