Alexander Benjamin turned six months old yesterday. To celebrate, we took him to the doctor's and had him shot.

Which is to say, he had his regular visit to the doctor, who gave him four different immunization shots. Ouch! Poor guy. (When I say "poor guy," I mean the kid, not the doctor. The doctor is a woman.) His next visit, in three months, will be his first visit to the doctor's office that won't involve shots. Hopefully, he won't have developed a negative association with doctors' offices by then.

Wait a minute... what am I saying? How can one *not* have a negative association with doctors' offices? I mean, when he gets older, he'll still only see a doctor when he's sick, right? The only reason *I* don't have a negative association with this particular doctor's office is because it's not my doctor! (Sorry, Adrien. Sorry, Frank. :-)

The doctor reports that Alexander is still gaining weight and height at an appropriate pace and that he seems to be adjusting well. He currently weighs just under 19 pounds, so he is almost out of the official range that his car seat is intended to support. Alas, he is also 28" long, which *is* out of the range that the car seat says it will support. Rats. We'll have to install a new car seat.

The doctor also gave us tips on feeding the little guy solid foods, a process that we had begun a mere few days before.

By solid foods, it turns out we're talking about "rice cereal", which is runnier than cream of wheat and hardly solid at all. In fact, it's pretty much just milk with a few tiny rice flakes in it. Solid food? Semantics.

Did you know that rice cereal can have a mildly constipating effect? Did you know that pears and prunes can have the opposite effect? Allow me to be the first to observe that pears and prunes both start with 'p' and end with 'poo.'

But anyway, I digress. As usual.

The doctor is under the impression that he's likely to retain his blue eyes, as opposed to his eyes turning green. Both of his parents have green eyes, but both of his grandfathers have blue eyes. Hence, the recessive trait had a one in four chance of making it to him. His eyes have varied in color, but have tended to remain a shade of blue, and the doctor thinks that is probably going to remain the case.

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures of Alex, but that doesn't mean he hasn't changed. Sure, he's taller (longer?) and his hair is looking fuller (and, I think there's still a chance he'll turn out blond like his dear old dad), but there are other changes, as well. He sits. He stands in his exersaucer and jumps up and down. He turns over from back to front to back again, and raises his head and flails his arms. Just like a turtle. Not that I'd know.

He still can't manage to get past the "Flood" level of Halo on our XBox game system, but he keeps trying. It's just a hand-eye coordination thing, I'm sure, and he's bound to figure it out sooner or later.

Not much else to report on the little guy. He keeps eating and growing, learning and laughing. I love his smile. Maybe, when he turns one year old, we'll be kind enough not to schedule four immunization shots on the same day as his birthday.