My sweet little biscuit is 7 months old. Holy cliche, where did the time go? I know right! I'll be completely honest with you, while I loved my little 7 lb bundle of joy for the first few months of his life, 7 months is way better. Of course I am starting to realize how much I took for granted the fact I could leave him laying on my bed while I showered or the ability to lay them on a play mat in the living room so you could cook supper. Those days are long gone. But the trade off is remarkable.
A newborn is a lovable blob of baby, but a 7 month old is a diaper full of personality.
I get big gummy smiles in the morning, shrieks of laughter, and a sleepy head on my shoulder at night. I know his likes and dislikes, where to tickle him to make him laugh, or that when he starts "singing" he will be out like a light in seconds.
At 7 months old I feel like I can safely say he sleeps through the night. It was a long road to get there, and he technically has been doing it for almost two months now, but I have been afraid to talk about it for fear of jinxing it. Now that I have crossed that bridge I am deathly afraid of going back to the 2 am wake-ups. Neil sits up like a champ to play with his toys although normally he chooses to chew on Duece's nasty stuffed squirrel more than anything else. It literally makes me cringe, but I appreciate that Duece is nice enough to share cause let's face it...the dog has some space issues.
Neil also knows that cords are off limits, but in baby language that obviously means, eat those cords. We are full on in the stage of getting into things. He may not be walking, but doing the army crawl will get you where you need to go and he knows it. The funny thing is that most of the time he doesn't use his right leg, just drags it behind him because he has no choice. This skill comes in handy when trying to get to the lamp cord, the tv cord, the computer charger, the iPad charger, or the high dryer. I have resorted to strategically placing less interesting new toys around the living room in hopes that he will decide to actually play with one instead of pulling the lamp off of the end table. As much as this new skills creates anxiety, I do love the fact that I can call his name, he will turn his head and scrawl (that's scoot crawl folks) over to me.
The kid can eat. He has started to turn down his nose to bottles and much prefers the delicacies of pureed peaches and freshly mushed green beans. This has become a struggle for us at bottle time, but we are working through it. He totally thinks now that whatever is on my plate must be in his hands. Because of this I have started to let him eat some food off my plate, which he thinks he loves. In reality all he does is put it on his tongue for a few seconds before pushing it out of his mouth. He'll figure it out because its food and he will find a way to get it in his belly.
Just in the last week he started growling, like an animal ( I will say animal because it isn't nice to compare your child to a demon). I am not gonna like, it kind of freaks me out. Its like watching an episode of Law and Order late at night...you know it is gonna make it hard to sleep but you love it so you keep watching. So he growls...at you, at me, at his toys, at his food.
Proof that he growls and eats plastic cords.
Watching Neil grow up is such a weird thing for me now, I know that everything I see him do, every new noise I hear him make, or the inquisitive look he gets on his face when he is figuring out a new toy is something that Matt doesn't get to see. I rambled on in this blog about him today and I ask myself why at 7 months did I decide to spend so much time on it? But the answer is simple. When Matt was with us everyday I knew he got so see exactly what I saw. Now we are in a different situation and I want to make sure I don't forget and Matt gets to "see" what I see.
