Half birthday!

Sebastian writes:

Today was my half birthday.

I have been doing lots of new things lately. I

can

sit up. That means no more carrier when I go shopping or to a restaurant. I can sit in a shopping cart or high chair. In that picture I am sitting in a high chair at some restaurant
Eli likes. NOTICE THAT I DO NOT HAVE ANY FOOD YET. Everyone else is eating chips. Also I can sit on the ground. It is more fun than being held all the time or just lying there. But when I am sitting I can't move. I like to move.

What I really want to do is walk. My friend Henry can stand up and practically walk

, but I can't do that yet. I saw him crawl one time and I thought I would do that. I get in the right position but nothing happens. Then I get tired and mad and yell for someone to move me. But I am practicing.

I can also eat real food. I am not saying that mommy milk isn't real food. It is delicious. You should have some. But I want to eat the same things everyone else eats

. I am pretty sure I can eat all of it right now. Mommy and Daddy think I sho

uld only eat a few things, though. I started out with rice cereal. It was so yummy! Then I had oatmeal. It was even yummier! Then I had green beans. Wow, talk about yummy! I like how I eat some of it, then there's more on my chin so I can eat it later. Here you see me eating. Much better. The best is when I can grab the spoon. There is always more yumminess on it so I can keep licking it and eating it. I think what other people call a lollipop.

The last food I tried was sweet potatoes. I think that was for Thanksgiving. Everyone e

lse ate these big things like turkey and corn pudding and some kind of cake. I just had my sweet potatoes. I would be more thankful if I had more food to eat. I am hoping for doughnuts tomorrow or possibly a tender cut of beef such as filet mignon.

Anyway, today was my half birthday so I am six months old. I think I mentioned that earlier. First we went to church. I like church but it int

erferes with my nap time. Daddy says he has the same problem. Silly Daddy! He doesn't nap!

Then we got in the minivan and went to a restaurant in Birmingham. Everybody else had things like chicken and macaroni and collard greens but I just got green beans. Then we went to this big mall. We did a little shopping and Eli and I got shoes. But mostly we did fun things. For example, Eli and Daddy and I rode in a train that went around the mall. We saw a lot of people and they all waved and smiled at me. It was so nice of them to come to the mall to wave and smile at me on my half birthday. If you are one of those people, then I want to send you a special message of thanks.

Oh, that was the special message of thanks. You are not getting any more than that. I probably waved and smiled at you, so really it is a breach of protocol if we start exchanging cards about it or something like that. It's like when someone sends you a card: are you obliged to send a thank-you card in return? Of course not. If you were, then that person would have to send you a card for that, and then you would send one, and it would never end. I am only six months old but that is obvious.

Eli said some people were too far away for waving, so those are the people to whom I wrote.

Then Eli went on this rubber band thing and jumped up really high. They called it a Eurobungy. It seemed very American to me, though. I watched him jumping up and down. It was a really fun show. He seemed to enjoy putting it on for me. He said he could see the tops of all kinds of things. He also said next time he would flip over. Mommy said the sign said you could not flip over unless you were under the age of 20, so Eli has only 16 years. I have longer. I am going to do the Eurobungy and flip over. You only have to weigh 20 lbs. to go on it and I'm practically there!

Eli and Mommy and Daddy then went and played air hockey. Eli said it was the first time he had played. Even I could see he was kind of little for the game. My idea is that I would sit on the air hockey table and kind of float around. I could fly like Eli did with the rubber band thing.

I decided to take a nap, but Eli and Mommy went on the carousel. I napped some more in the car and we were at my friends the Horwitzes' house all of a sudden. It turned out it was Isaac's actual second birthday. He is so big. Mommy and Daddy told me they remember when he was tiny. There was pizza and cake, which I thought would be great new foods, but I DID NOT GET ANY. Despite this, I retained a happy affect; indeed, Mommy and Daddy said we were both very good all day.

So I am going to sleep now. Tomorrow I am going to get some doughnuts and also start crawling. Maybe I will also have a tooth! I can't wait for those!