Max is 6 months old this week

This morning Max woke up at 5am. I quietly changed his nappy in the dark and gave him a bottle. I popped him in bed next to me, wrapped him up firmly, played some relaxation music and dozed off. Shortly after, I was woken by a tiny little finger being rammed up my nostril. I opened a bleary eye, he grinned at me and said "raaaah". How can you be angry with that?!

I took him into the kitchen, put him in his highchair and gave him some toast (with avocado- he loves to lick it all off). It was then that I looked at him and thought "thank goodness you aren't a newborn anymore". Whilst I'm still not a fan of starting the day at 5am, I much prefer spending my days with a (nearly) 6 month old.

There is an element of predictability with a 6 monther that you don't get with a newborn. Ok, so I don't what sort of mood he'll wake up in, nor do I know what time it'll be. Some days he likes cereal, some days he doesn't. Sometimes he falls asleep in the car and other times he'll babble the whole way (and fall asleep as we pull into the driveway). But.... these days I can pretty much understand what his various vocalizations mean, I know that he likes to 'wind down' before a nap by reading stories and I love how Mozart is his favorite music (always makes him fall asleep with a smile on his face). I LOVE that he can entertain himself a bit now. I ADORE watching him try and figure things out. And his beautiful, cheeky grin makes me melt everytime, without fail.

So, whilst Max was happily slurping away on his avocado toast, I enjoyed my morning coffee in relative peace. I even got his bottles prepared for the day and did the dishes, all before 6am. Noice!

Since, Max will be 6 months old this week, I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane.

Once upon a time, Max was this little.....




I loved him so much but he was so small, so new to world and so unpredictable. This photo was taken after his first bath, he was 24 hours old. This was the first time I had dressed him and I bumbled through it like Edward Scissorhands. Those damn press stud buttons. Tiny, confusing little bastards.

A few days later, I gave him a dummy. God bless you Mr dummy. You restored my sanity.


About a week or so later, he looked something like this....



I always took photos of him sleeping back then. It was my trophy, "look at me, I got my baby to sleep". In the early days it stressed me out so much that he only napped for 20 minute stints during the day. One day, I just decided to accept that that was 'his thing' and I've been much happier since. Incidentally, even when he was heavily medicated on seizure and pain medication he still only napped in 20 minute stints.

There was no reason for him to be wearing this 'Wally' hat.



He was a few weeks old here, we were at 'Births, Deaths and Marriages' registering his birth. He slept with his arms up, the whole time.



I think he's about 6 weeks old here. He's watching Larry Emdur on TV.




I love this picture. What on earth are you thinking little man?




This is the expression he used to pull when he was first put in the bath. I called it 'Charles Manson'.




After a few seconds, he would realize that he liked bath time and changed to something like this-





Gorgeous boy, I think he's about 8 weeks old in this one.




I have almost 1,700 photos of Max on my phone. 600 of them were taken before he got sick. I'll be honest and admit that the next photo hurts me to look at. It was the last photo I took of him before he got sick. When he was in ICU, hooked up to a zillion machines and in a coma, I looked at it a gazillion times. Most of those times, I cried. All I had was hope that one day I'd see him smile like this again.





And finally, photo number 1,612 taken a few days ago





Happy 6 month birthday Maxwell Hendrix Valentine. Thank you.


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