Seven months

My love, today you are seven months old. I feel like I spent so much time looking forward to you being six months, and then it came and went so quickly. A lot has happened in the last month that I have yet to write about. I hope that I will have time soon to write about our cloth diaper struggles, our first time winging it without your Daddy and your first real overnight road trip to see Papa (your great-grandfather). For now I want to focus on the many ways you've changed in the last month.

To start, I'm afraid you are moving faster toward big boy ways of doing things. In the last 2 weeks you have become so much more interested in anything other than nursing. You take a bottle very well for Nanny C and Daddy and eat like a champ. As much as I want to continue nursing you until your birthday, I'm afraid you are telling me you have other plans. You used to nurse for much longer than most babies...45 minutes to an hour all together. Often 15 minutes or so of that was a nap as it was next to impossible to keep you awake. This last month, I changed your schedule some so that you now nurse right after you wake up. For a week or so you did great. Now, you are awake most of the time, but prefer to eat the burp cloth, look for Daddy, play with my shirt, suck your fingers...truly anything is more interesting to you than eating. I have taken to clipping one of your favorite toys to my shirt and sometimes you are intrigued enough to play with it and forget you are nursing too. I'm afraid you are losing patience with the mom buffet. I am struggling with whether I need to just be patient with your need for constant redirection or if I need to be more sensitive to your apparent interest in faster food. This is really hard for me to think about letting go of five months earlier than I had hoped. This is also probably too personal for me to be blogging. (Please, readers, fight any urge you might have to leave anything other than supportive comments on this...I promise you I am not ready to hear any other kind) The bottom line is that you just don't get to try as many foods as I would have liked at this point in your little life. You have tried and liked butternut squash, pears, bananas, carrots, and avocado. While you have tried all of those, your diet consists mostly of avocado...boy, if you are what your eat, you ARE an avocado. In fact, all the other things you've tried, have just gotten mixed into your "cado". Good thing you like it! On a lighter note, you are getting better with your sippy cup. You still don't understand that you have to tip it up, but you are getting there. You also do pretty well with a big boy cup (no lid!) with help, of course. No signs of teeth yet, so everything you get is pureed. There's an occasional avocado chunk, but you tend to spit those back. Hopefully we'll let you try sweet potatoes soon. Your Dad is looking for any excuse to stock up on them. Secretly I think he wants you to like them as much as he does.

Also in the big boy realm, you seem to be getting past the pleasure of rocking before bedtime. You love your books and usually smile and kick your legs when we start reading. You especially seem to like "Night, Night Little Pookie" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." By the way, you are more interested in eating the books than you are mom's buffet...I'm not bitter. After your books, we turn on "Raffi" your giraffe and get Lovie. Generally you spend the next 5-10 minutes smacking yourself in the face with your fist or Lovie while squirming all over, hanging over backwards and cooing loudly. You used to settle down eventually and that was when I knew you would go to sleep soon and put you down. Lately, I have put you down more awake because it is seems you might be more comfortable there than in my arms. This makes me a little sad, but snuggle time couldn't last forever.

Developmentally you seem right on track. In the last month you have gotten much stronger and now sit independently for several minutes at a time. We still keep pillows around you to catch you when you tucker out. You also seem to enjoy standing more and are more active in your exersaucer. You haven't really taken to jumping much yet, but I'm sure that will come. You use your fingers better and focus on the tags on your toys and clothes. I bought you a "taggie" ball and you do a great job of lobbing it around by the tags. Sometimes it seems like we play catch with it, though I know that's just an accident on your part.

You are learning to express yourself more verbally. At first you seemed to be just trying out new tones and pitches, but lately the squeals and softer coos correlate more with your playtime and the squeaks and moans segue into cries and frustration. You sometimes seem to answer to your name, but more often respond to "Dude, sweet boy, punkin, or my love" since those are the names you're usually called. You have also picked up a few consonants. You've let out a "ma" once or twice, but I know it was an accident. Still it was nice to hear. Grams even heard it so I knew it was real. You also have some "g" and "b" sounds. Sorry Dad, no "d" yet. Strangely the most consistent speech sound lately is a "th." That one is fun for me because when I do it back, you get very focused on my mouth and do it again. At first I was pleased that you seemed to have such an advanced sound. In the last few days though I've realized this seems to be developing into a razz/spitting sound. Nanny C tells me you tried it out during breakfast this week. We definitely have messier days ahead! Socially you've started to realize that other people exist. You and I have been to a few places and a couple of larger gatherings. After about 15 minutes, you seem to relax a little and actually smiled at a few strangers rather than just staring a hole through them. I hope we'll get our routine down well enough to go out together more often. We have a few standing invitations for play dates, but we haven't made too many yet. You have many months before you will play with other children, but I do want you to know they exist. Your world to this point has looked like me, your Daddy, and our house most days. Now that you are showing more interest in what's around you it's time to show you that there's a little more out there.

In our next month we have another overnight trip, this one with Grandpa, Lah-oo and Aunt L. After that we have our first vacation just the three of us. Mommy also starts a new job in a few weeks. I bet you will be sitting pillow-free and might even have a tooth in your near future. Until then, could you try not to grow up too fast? There's lots of time for big boy things. I promise to try to let go of your baby ways when you're ready if you'll promise not to rush out of them. Deal?