Home again and kid updates

Hey guys. So we are still acclimating to being home again. I’m glad to be home with some down time in which to reinstate the schedules and get to see my friends and settle into life. We left on vacation only two weeks after we moved back from Phoenix so I still have a lot of organizing to do. Davis didn’t really nap on the cruise so I am hoping that we can get that going again. It is important to my sanity.
Sam is six months and three weeks and he’s growing by leaps and bounds. He’s scooting around now with some proficiency. This is dangerous and we need to change our habits. He’s fallen off the bed now twice! I cannot describe to you the sickening feeling you get when you hear the thump and the cry as they fall off the bed. The guilt! It happened with Davis twice too and he turned out okay, but I told Michael that two times is the limit and there will be no more falling off the bed allowed! Sam is just getting so fast! He’s also sitting up pretty well now so I don’t feel like I need to hover around him as much when he plays on the floor. Of course, sometimes he gets excited and falls over, but not so often now. He’s eating one solid meal a day and would happily eat more, but I just can’t seem to make that happen yet. It’s so messy and feeding a baby takes so long! I can’t wait till he can handle finger food. But he’s so fun now too. We play peek a boo, and sing rhyming songs and actually interact. He’s such a squishy, fat, dimply baby, I can’t help but want to hug him all the time.
We also started on project sleep through the night. You may remember that at four months we did the Ferber method and taught him to sleep in his crib. He still woke at least twice nightly though and since he was in our closet in our teensy apartment in Phoenix, we couldn’t really keep him from it. Then on the cruise he and Davis were both crammed into our cabin and so I just nursed him every time he woke so he wouldn’t wake up Davis. So when we got back I told him I was only going to nurse him once a night. The first night I put him down at the usual time of 6:30PM. He woke at 9:30 and cried for maybe 20 minutes, but not hard and then slept till 1 when I nursed him and he slept till 6:30AM. Yay! Last night we put him down at 6:30 and he woke at 9:30 and cried intermittently till 11:30 sometimes hard sometimes not at all and then he fell asleep. I had made myself a rule that I wouldn’t go in until midnight since that’s the halfway point. Then he slept until 5AM. I nursed him then since I really needed to nurse too and he went back to sleep until 7. We’ll do the one time a night nursing for a week and then I won’t go in there at all. I can almost taste how good it will feel to sleep through the night. It's been so long.
The funny thing is that I remember how hard it was the first time to do this and now it’s so much easier. I just turn the volume off on the monitor and watch the lights and I figure if I can hear him crying through his closed door, then it’s time to check on him on the video monitor. I guess I have more crying tolerance after having done it all with Davis.
And Sam is still the smiley baby. All you have to do is smile at him and he will grin back. He is so social. He’ll be happy on the floor playing by himself if someone else is in the room, but if everyone leaves he cries.
Davis is having some transition problems with all of our moving and vacation. He acts out by hitting. I know he will even out if we give him some routine, but it’s hard right now. I just try to spend a lot of time hugging him and playing with him. He actually has real conversations now and that helps so much. We're also working on manners and he has added ma'am and sir and pardon to his language. He loved spending time with the Walter clan on the boat and he still talks about them all the time. He's been spending everyday since we got home with his MiMi, PaPa and cousin Kade and he's been having a blast with them too. He also loves to play with friends. Yesterday I was pushing him around the grocery store and he would say to the other kids that passed, "Hi Friend!". So cute.
So now I just need to get well. I am so sick of being sick. Michael is working so hard at work that I need to be in top form to take care of house and home.
You know I'll keep you updated.
Love, Amber