7 Months Old Already!

Dear William,

Happy 7 month birthday, Little Man! You are such an amazing little boy and I am thankful for every day that we have to spend with you.

So much happened with you this month. It has been quite an exciting and trying month for you (and the rest of us, as well.)

Let's see... where to start? Let's start with the requisite height and weight. Again, I am doing this on my own because your next doctor's appointment isn't until your 9 month birthday. I was off last month (and the month before) like I figured I would be. I figured I would be overestimating everything, and I was slightly. So, again, take these with a grain of salt... Daddy and I measured you and you were right around 28 inches. You weight 19 pounds. Big boy! You are almost entirely in 12 month clothing. I am still squeezing your chunky and ridiculously tall self into 9 month periodically, but I have phased out a lot of your 9 month clothing. As of right now, you still have no teeth! Seriously! Kenzie had 2 by now so I kind of figured I could expect the same with you. I should have known not to do that. Haha! You two are so alike and yet SO different. I am worried a bit that you are going to be more like me. I got teeth really late and have dealt with a lifetime of teeth related issues. I'm hoping that even though they are coming in later than I expected that you will not have the same issues I do. Right now though, I LOVE that gummy smile and I am so excited that I have gotten to look at it for longer than I thought I would. =) You still smile with your whole face and those little gums show up in most of your smiles. At least it is one thing that keeps you looking more "baby-ish" and more like my little baby. Otherwise, you are so big and something about you just makes you look older than 7 months to me. You are also quite the laugh-er. You break into giggle fits about anything and everything. The other day I was putting lotion on you and you would have thought it was the funniest thing ever. Daddy made a meowing noise at you a couple of days ago and you gave a great belly laugh. I love that giggle!

You still love to eat. You nurse A LOT. I seriously can't even really count how many times a day. Typically, I would say that you nurse at least 6 times a day and you aren't sleeping through the night yet, so you can nurse anywhere from 3-6 times at night. You are such a piglet. You are also still eating solids twice a day for the most part. If we are out somewhere at lunch I will usually bring along something for you because it keeps you busy and you get to join in on the eating fun. Otherwise, you usually just have solids at breakfast and dinner time. We have now added pears, butternut squash, peas, green beans, spinach (mixed with the pears), zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots. So far, we haven't found a food that you didn't seem to like. Some of them took a couple extra tries before you were okay with them, but now  you will happily eat whatever we give you. You like to have things mixed but will eat each food on its own as well. At breakfast you usually have 2-3 ounces of a fruit (like apples or pears) mixed with 2-3 tablespoons of baby oatmeal. I think you are about ready for real oatmeal so as soon as the container of oatmeal runs out, we will be switching. You are getting better with chunkier food so it is the next step. At dinner you usually eat 2-3 ounces of veggies and then often will eat 2 ounces of fruit mixed with about 2 tablespoons of oatmeal. I don't push food on you, but if you seem to want more, we continue on. It obviously isn't hindering your breastmilk intake so I don't worry about weaning you accidentally or something too early. I remember always being so concerned with Kenzie because she didn't eat much to begin with, but again, SO different... you just love to eat. We have also worked on giving you puff and yogurt bites. You usually still need help picking them up, but if they can make it into your mouth, you will gladly eat them. You gagged a bit initially, but you have it down pat now. We have also done finger foods of banana and spaghetti. Again, most of the time it doesn't make it to your mouth, but when it does, you have no problem eating it. You are still learning to drink out of your cup. You are getting much better. You do not drink much from the cup, but you certainly can. I'm hoping to start trying to put breastmilk in it soon to see if we can get you to drink that way since you are STILL anti bottle. I haven't even tried in weeks because it was too stressful for everyone involved. Not worth it. My breastfeeding goal (at least as far as full time during the day) is one year so we are almost there and then we will just go straight to cups of cows milk when we wean... except night time. I like to keep that nursing session. I have a hard time parting with that. Haha!

Now, onto the fact that you got your first major sickness this month. Hand, Foot, Mouth ran rampant through this house. Okay, only you and your sister developed it, but it wasn't any fun at all. It involved a lot of cleaning daily and keeping you two separated to a point. I have never done so much laundry and smelled so much Lysol. You did fairly well with it. You ran a really high fever for a day. I took you to the doctor and they ran all sorts of tests: flu, UTI, RSV, etc... nothing. A couple of days later you developed a few blisters but I thought they were bug bites. You had maybe 4 total. Then you were fine. A few days later, Kenzie had the same fever and hers was diagnosed immediately as HFM. So, we figured out what yours was. We held your shots initially because we didn't know what it was and we wanted to do a strep culture. Once that was negative though and we figured it out, you had your shots and you did WONDERFUL! You cried when you got them but recovered faster than I have ever seen. You were all smiles even as the nurse was putting the band-aid on you. Good job, Little Man! You didn't have any fever or anything after. You weren't even tired. Nothing slows you down, apparently. About a week ago you seemed to pick up your first stomach bug. You were having a lot of dirty diapers but your milk and food intake wasn't really hindered. I could tell that you weren't 100%, but anyone that didn't know you really well probably wouldn't have picked up on it.

As for sleep... it isn't your favorite thing. You are taking pretty good naps lately. Your morning nap tends to still happen on the go because we are so busy in the mornings, but if we are home and you nap in your crib it is usually for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. Your afternoon nap is normally around 1.5 hours or more. We are down to two naps a day for the most part. We are working on getting you on a 2-3-4 schedule. You are still going to bed around 7 most nights. Some nights you are a bit earlier because your second nap ended earlier than usual and sometimes you are later because you are doing okay and we are doing other things that extend bed time. Your nightly routine is still to nurse before bed, but we are going to be working on changing that up some in the coming months. You do not nurse before naps and you rarely even fuss any more when I put you down. Night sleeping has been a pain for all of us this month. For some reason you spent most of the month not wanting to go down. I would nurse you, lay you down, and BAM! You were awake. We would let you fuss for a bit, usually find that it didn't work, go in and rock you, lay you down, and... you guessed it! Awake again! This would go on for hours. Eventually you would sleep, but as soon as you woke up we would repeat the cycle. Magically towards the end of the month you seemed to figure it out and now you go right back to sleep immediately after nursing. The plus is that you also seemed to figure out how to sleep slightly longer periods of time. You typically wake to nurse around 10:00, 12:00, and 5:00. It is so nice to be down to just three or so feedings at night. You are usually waking up between 6:30 and 7:30 every morning. It doesn't matter what time we put you down, you are just an early riser. Just like your sister and that actually fits in well with your Daddy and me. The last couple of days we have had a few more issues. Apparently, all of a sudden you decided that you wanted to sleep on  your belly. You will roll over and most of the time you are okay, but you are not sleeping longer periods as well and if you wake up and are upset you can't get it together well enough to roll back over onto your back. If I go in and rock you or feed you, I will lay you on your back and by the time I make it out of the room you are on your belly. I have no concerns with you sleeping on your belly (funny how different it is for a second child) and I hope that maybe you will sleep better if you are more comfortable that way. We shall see how it turns out. Every other night you take a bath with your sister. That is going to change though and you will be bathing every night from this point on but that is because of your new accessory. =) You LOVE to splash in the bath tub with your sister and splash her. It is so nice to be able to bathe you both at once. Makes our lives so much easier than doing two separate baths and it was nice to ditch all baby tubs. We did notice this month that you are dealing with a bit of baby eczema which means that baths need to be quick for you. You periodically get patches, but they are not too bad at this point and we are trying to remedy it with different soap and lotion.

This month you went to the beach for more than just 5 minutes to look around. It was technically your second trip, but your first true "beach day". We went with a few friends and you did great! You enjoyed sitting on the sheet under the tent and playing with the toys. You also did okay in the water but it was a bit rough and chilly. We are excited to take you to the Keys this summer where the water is less rough and warmer. I think you will really enjoy that. We also went in the pool for the first time. You love sitting in your raft (sorry it's pink and orange...). You also liked to be held and walked bath and forth across the pool. We have such water babies. I love it! We took your first Disney trip this month. You were so amazed at all the new things and you loved to watch all the people.

 

The wonder week we went through this month was brutal. You were a mess more days than you weren't. Even so, the cool tricks you picked up afterwards were worth it. You have definitely learned cause and effect. For example, you drop a toy from your highchair... I pick it up. You shake the box with your blocks in it... it makes noise. You throw a toy across the room (you have quite the arm by the way)... Kenzie brings it back (sometimes). The downfall of learning this? You cry... Mommy or Daddy comes back. Separation anxiety has officially kicked in. To top it all off, you have developed quite a significant attachment to me. While sweet, it  has been a bit of a pain. You are usually okay if you are separated from me and cannot see or hear me but so help me if I enter your air space. You cry and start jumping around like a maniac. My favorite new trick though is peek-a-boo. If Daddy or I am holding you, you will bury your head in our chest and wait for someone to say "Where's Will?" then you will pop your head up really fast all smiles and we say "Peek-a-boo!!". You think it is hilarious. Kenzie thinks it is quite funny too. We will ask you if you want to play "Where's Will" and you will put your head down.

As for physical feats, you are not yet crawling. I really initially thought you would be early with this but you are content to continue to let Kenzie do things for you. Haha! You can get your butt up high in the air and every now and then you will push up on your hands too putting you on all fours. Then you will launch yourself forward and onto your face. While quite funny, it isn't super effective. Usually you only lift your bottom and push yourself forward without lifting your head. You can lift up really high on your arms but you still usually do not have the coordination to do both at once. I must admit, I thought I wanted you to crawl but I forgot how nice it is to have an immobile baby sometimes as I chase your sister around the house trying to keep her out of things. Plus, I do not miss those baby gates and I know they will need to return as soon as you start crawling. You have perfected the tummy to back roll. Often times, if I put you on your tummy you do not stay there long. You can roll back to belly and pretty much has it perfected as well now. I can watch you roll clear across a room to get something you want... so crawling is unnecessary. Haha! You are a sitting champ, but you haven't yet figured out how to sit up (from laying down) on your own. Part of that is because you can't get the coordination well enough to often end up on your hands AND knees. I know it's coming though. The plus with you not doing it yet though, is that I can leave your mobile on your bed a bit longer and you love that thing. I really think that if you would spend more time on your belly and not constantly roll to your back, that you would be doing more of these things but it is what it is and you are perfectly content to do it at your own pace. I am perfectly content to allow you to do so. You can sit up and play for really long periods of time and that is perfect for you at this point. You have also started to stand if you are holding onto something. You have been able to support your own weight on your legs in a stand for months, but now you can do it if we prop you against something, like a chair. You cannot pull up yet, but you can stand without our help if placed there. It doesn't last long, but you are working on it. I'm in no rush to see you figure out how to pull up and eventually walk. Stay little, Baby Boy!

You are still talking up a storm and your new favorite thing to do is screech really loudly. All. The. Time. You will also mimic someone if they do it first. You also like to mimic blowing raspberries. You actually just like to blow raspberries still. You do it constantly. Especially when I am trying to feed you. That is messy. Early this month you started say "mama" when you are crying. About a week ago I decided that we will call it your first word. You said it one day while playing and looking directly at me. I debated for most of the remaining week if I thought you put meaning behind it and you have said it a few times a day since then. Always while looking at me and once I reward you with attention you smile like a fool. You said it while reaching for me a couple of time and Nana heard you say it when she was holding you and I walked back into the room. Yay! Mama was your first word! That also means that your first word came more than a month ahead of Kenzie. We all know how much she talks... Lord help me if you talk just as much (if not more). I have heard you say "ma", "meh", "da" and "ba" sounds as well so you are definitely working on consonant sounds now. I have heard you say "dada" this week too. I think you might even have some meaning behind that but I haven't decided for sure yet. Pretty soon I will have two little voices constantly chattering away.

This month we had you dedicated at church on Mother's Day. You are doing great at church, by the way. You go to the nursery with no issues and you typically take a short nap then cuddle with Ms. Bailey back there. You even cry when I take you away. You may have a crazy attachment to me, but you definitely like her a lot too.

Now, onto the biggest development for you this month. We learned that you have a flat spot on your head that isn't bad in it's own right, but is (unfortunately) also causing some facial asymmetry. As a result, we elected to go forward with a helmet. Hence the need for daily baths, as I mentioned before. It raises your body temperature (though I've been assured that it will return to normal soon as you adjust to it) and so you sweat and stink. It was definitely what we felt was best for you. It's too adorable, by the way. You shouldn't have to wear it too long and in the grand scheme of things, it is just a blip in your life. A blip that is entirely worth it to make you have the roundest head of all of us more than likely. You have adjusted really well to wearing it. Actually, any time we remove it you rub your head like you are wondering where it went. You are still pushing up, trying to crawl, sitting up beautifully, rolling all around the room, and doing everything you did prior to the helmet. So far your sleep has been okay too. Well, okay for you. Maybe the plus is that we are so used to you not sleeping that well so we are not noticing any significant changes in your sleeping habits with the helmet. I was so worried for that first nap with the helmet... but you did GREAT! I put you down, you rolled around a bit, and then you were out. Perfect!

You are growing so big, so fast and you are such a little ham. You smile constantly and love to be tickled exploding into giggle fits whenever someone tickles your neck or belly. You still think your sister is the coolest person out there even though she often gets annoyed with you bothering her. (Don't worry. That will never change. She loves you so much though.) You are a snuggle bug a lot of the time and you love to snuggle with Daddy when he gets home from work. You are the other piece of our whole and we love you very much.

Happy 7 months, Little Man!

XOXO,
Mommy