Wolfe 6 Month Update
Wolfe is almost 6 months old, he goes in for his appointment next week and will get a bunch of immunizations. He's becoming more vocal and can roll from tummy to back, but not the other way around yet. He's starting to sit up and can support himself for a little while before toppling over. He really likes his stand up saucer play pen and can rotate himself around to play with different toys. We just got a carpet so he can have more tummy time and a bigger play area in the living room. He laughs and interacts but is still really fussy and doesn't like being left alone. When I watch him all day I still get nothing done.
We were in Hawaii for the holidays- Oauhu and Molokai- more on that later, but his sleep schedule seems to have gotten really bad. We had studio condos when we were there so he would sleep with me while Dad and Sarah took the second bed, but he woke up a lot each night and I would usually just nurse him back to sleep so he wouldn't wake up everyone, but now he seems to be in the habit of waking up every hour or two during the night, so last night we put him in his crib and let him cry for a while and finally he slept for like a five hour stretch.
We have to keep working on the sleeping- I'm going back to work part time and it's one thing to be at home taking care of baby when you are sleep deprived, but getting up and going to work etc. is another. We checked out different infant care centers and picked one nearby for Wolfe so he'll be starting three days a week. We're lucky to have a number of different options nearby and also for me to be able to go back part time, hopefully he'll adjust well and it will help his development to be around other people and other babies, but he is a high demand baby and with the ratio of care givers to babies he just won't get the kind of constant attention he does at home. We'll have to see how it goes, I don't want him unhappy and crying too much. Thus far when I'm away for very long, even with my husband, I sometimes get phone calls that he is crying and inconsolable to come home. I'll post more on how day care goes in the future.
I heard recently that there is a shortage of day care in the United States, and in some places in the United States you have to get on waiting lists well in advance to get a spot in day care for your child. Day care is a relatively new thing, most of us and our parents were probably not in day care. Only a generation or two back most mom's stayed home with their kids and a single salary could support a family. Now days the opposite is true, it's more common that both parents work and rare to find single income families. This is what I call one of the silent consequences of the increase in division of wealth in the United States and the decrease in wealth for the average and lower income families (note wealth is real wealth-i.e. inflation adjusted). While the economy has continued to grow the wealthy have reaped the majority of the benefit while the average American is worse off than they were only a generation ago. Many people don't know this and popular media and the news do not want people to realize this either. The decrease in wealth of the average American can be subtle- it's evident in facts like in most families both parents have to work to support their family, most people have way more debt than previous generations- longer term mortgages car loans and other debt and it's a simple fact that more debt and longer term debt is more expensive due to the interest paid over time so families with less income are paying a lot more in interest. Also most of us work longer hours, have less savings for retirement and no pension plan, and pay more for healthcare. Having a child kind of highlights these things and how much some families are struggling- your resources and time are both majorly impacted with children and most Americans now have less financial resources and time. We don't fall into the 'average' category and are lucky that I can work part time and have more time to spend with Darwin, so I'm not ranting to complain about my own situation but for general awareness. I'll save more ranting and philosophy on the increase in division of wealth and the 'silent' consequences for some other post…back to Darwin.
Darwin is doing great, he now eats solids twice a day. His first foods were green beans and pears, but he really likes prunes. We usually mix a tablespoon of rice or oatmeal cereal with a fruit or vegetable. Sometime he chows it down other times it more of a play exercise and just ends up all over us or in the garbage, but he's only six months. He likes to bang on his little piano and finds scratching and feeling fabrics fascinating. He scratches at the flowers on the wall in his changing station in his room thinking they'll come off the wall….but no they are painted on! Well time is up for now.
