We love vegetables!!

This is Gabriel with zucchini on his face. It's his favorite vegetable - also the first one we tried. He just loves it. He's not making a super happy face right here, but that's mainly the effect of the camera, not the food. So, yes, we are eating veggies now, so far just zucchini and carrots. We just started the carrots a few days ago, but we've been doing zucchini for a couple of weeks. And we've given up on rice cereal. It is just too boring. Now we're eating oatmeal instead, and later this week we'll try a multi-grain cereal. Gabriel is also getting better at drinking water, both out of a real cup and a sippy cup. Yesterday I gave him diluted juice for the first time. One of the moms in my PEPS group suggested pear juice for constipation, so that's what we're trying. When I mentioned constipation in the last post, I was being naive - he was not constipated then. Now I know the difference! So anyway, hopefully the juice will help . . .
I don't really have any pictures this week unfortunately, my camera needs batteries before I can get any new ones from it to the computer. Fun things are happening besides vegetables though . . . we've discovered clapping!! Clapping is Gabriel's new favorite thing. And it really is the cutest thing in the world to see. I've started doing some baby signs with him, and now we're working on waving. He just loves doing things with his hands, and watching my hands. He also LOVES getting into EVERYTHING!! He can't even crawl, yet he manages to get into everything within reach, and many things that are just barely out of reach. He is working really hard on figuring out this crawling thing, so we really need to start paying attention to what's around him. I think Gabriel is going to be a very very entertaining (and a little bit difficult) little mover!
Another thing that happened since my last post was that we turned six months old!! So there was a doctor's visit, which went fine. Gabriel is right about average for both height and weight (oddly enough he's just above for weight, just below for height). He's about 18 lbs and a little over 26" long/tall. His head circumference is still well above average though, which I find amusing. He just needs a big head to hold that large brain of his!
And what post would be complete without a sleep update? Well at least we are getting good naps!! And night time sleep is a little bit better, but that's mainly because I've just completely given in. Which is a good thing. Sometimes you just have to let go and admit that you have no control over a situation (or person!). So when Gabriel simply will not stay asleep on his own in his crib, I just sleep with him. Unfortunately our bed is not big enough for the three of us, so this means Gabriel and I sleep on the couch, which is actually very comfortable, more so than the two of us in the bed. I'm also trying out sleeping in his room, on the recliner, when he is sleeping in his crib. This hasn't seemed to make a difference so far, however. Last night we actually got our longest stretch of sleep in ages, I think it was close to six hours! Of course it was on the couch, with Gabriel in my arms, but still. I read something by a mom who was going through a similar thing with her baby, and she said that she had to just stop worrying about the bad habits that the books told her she would be creating, and just give her baby what she needed. And it worked fine for her. So that's what I'm trying to do. If Gabriel needs to sleep with me for a little bit, I can do that. His sleeping habits will get better some day. I know they will . . .
Sorry for the super-boring pictureless post! I promise more pictures next time.