1/200th of a century old

Mino is 6 months old already, the memory of the pain of his birth is long gone but the emotions are still fresh.  When I look at him I remember the first time I saw him up in the little incubator (the whole fresh baby on your belly after he is first out wasn't too good for me) and realized he was mine.  Martin and I frequently have the conversation (and we know we are uber biased) that we have no idea how we made such a cute baby - neither of us foresaw something so cute, we figured he would be more awkward looking than he is.
Martin is in California at a conference so I went to Clintonville to pawn of some of the baby caring on my parents - oh and go to Lisa's bridal shower and visit Auntie Sarah - so the teddy bear is missing from this month as is the usual positioning.   Anyway, without further ado. .

 The night before he turned six months he officially was sitting up on his own, he still tips over, obviously, but the little bugger can use his abs and balance himself for 30 seconds up to a couple minutes before he kinda folds over.  He still has only rolled over twice.

 

 

 

 And we're done.

 

I guess I forget he is a boy, I took a couple with some daffodils and a branch from the crab apple tree but those didn't quite go as planned.  More funerally.  Not appropriate.  Maybe if he was a girl that would have worked better.
We stopped by to visit Poppop who is fantastic with kiddos.  It was slightly warm in there as you can see by his increasingly rosy cheeks.

 He was loving this fake cat thing that my mom got for my Nana back in the day. . . quite possibly a skinned stuffed cat.  He could pull its fur and it wouldn't run away.  Wallace doesn't like it rough.
 He knows how to get Portos to love him. . open mouthed kissing and constant snuggling.

 He is really starting to interact with the world around him.  He loves to reach out at everything around him and feel it, he likes to grab and pull and now my hair and glasses are fair game.  Here he was sending emails like Granddude.

 Auntie Sarah was pretty busy with all the wedding hooplah for her gal pal and rumored lady lover Lisa so she just got a couple quickies with the little guy between events.  He lover her though, he smiles whenever she is around.  I think it is possible he recognizes her voice from all the facetiming we do with her.  It is kinda neat to see since she is so far away.

He also likes cougars. 

 So Granddude and his father used to spend a lot of time tinkering with Ham Radios.  My dad lost interest for the last decade but recently rekindled his interest and introduced Mino to it and let him turn the dials and listen.  I guess they spoke with a gentleman in Ontario and Mino was telling him all about the Twin Cities.

Here we are today after we got back.  Mino is fantastic at car trips for about three hours.  The trip between here and Clintonville is four hours.  Needless to say he wanted OUT of his car seat like whoa.