Seven Months: A Letter

Dear Nicholas,

You turned seven months a week ago and we are just having the best time. You are so much fun at this age and really starting to show off your little personality. Like the past six months, month seven flew by in a wink. It began during the second half of our summer vacation trip to the Northwest, including visits with Mommy's Seattle girlfriends where you met your future buddies Silas and Archie, your first trip to Cannon Beach (but second dip in the Pacific Ocean), and a big family dinner at Waverley where you met Great Uncle Charlie and saw your aunts, uncles, and great grandparents again.

Once we got home, you spent the next few weeks getting to know some other little friends at your Gymboree class and trying really hard to crawl. You can move yourself backwards-- although this is usually unintentional and results in a frustrated whine as the object of your desire moves further away. You've also made several small little inches forward--army crawl style-- on a few occasions, but you're still not quite able to move forward consistently. At the very end of your seventh month, you've started getting up on your knees slightly and rocking back and forth, so I know a full fledged crawl is probably just a few weeks away.

Teething also continues. On August 14th, your top left center tooth poked through and you've had a very swollen little tooth bud next to it for the past few weeks, so I know your other top center tooth will be making its appearance any day now. Despite your teething, however, your sleep habits seem to be improving somewhat. About a week ago we had one night when you slept from 6:30pm to 6:30am, which was amazing. We've also had plenty of nights where you've slept from 6:30 or 7pm until around 5am, and then fall back asleep for another hour and a half or so after a quick feeding. We'll take it. We still have nights when you wake up several times, but we hope that these continue to become fewer and further apart.
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We don't know exactly how much you weigh, and you aren't scheduled to visit the doctor again until you reach nine months, but we estimate you're around 19.5-20 pounds. You are getting quite heavy to carry around in your infant car seat, and we've started just taking you out of the car seat and carrying you in our arms when we go places.

You continue to warm up to solid food. You now eat baby oatmeal like a champ and love most fruit purees, as well as the sweeter veggie purees like carrots, sweet potato, and squash. I've started introducing some finger foods, and you are a big fan of baked sweet potato fries. Occasionally, you'll reach for a bite of our food, and you've really enjoyed slices of peach and plum. We also recently discovered that you love string cheese. You'll probably find this item in heavy rotation on your menu for the next few months.

We introduced a sippy cup with water this month and you love playing with it, although haven't quite succeeded in figuring out how to get the water in your mouth without help from mom or dad. But, boy, when you do get a few sips, you absolutely love water. Who knew? You'll drink it out of the sippy cup, and are equally thrilled to take little assisted sips out of a cup or water bottle. I don't know if it's the novelty of  something other than a bottle, or if you do just really love water. You still nurse about 5 times a day, and several times a week we'll give you an extra bottle feeding of formula.

This month you also truly found your voice. While you've been making all kinds of noises for months now, this month you discovered you can use those vocal cords to shriek. And shriek you do whenever you are in a good mood. It sounds like we live with a rare tropical bird, but it's actually pretty cute and I like your chipper shrieking every morning after you've eaten.

At seven months, you love bouncing in your Sassy Seat, staring at your elephant mobile, sitting up to play with toys or flip through the pages of your soft fabric covered books, taking baths, going swimming, lying under the parachute at Gymboree, chewing on anything you can get your hands on, listening to me sing (badly)-- your favorite is "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and watching all of Daddy's funny antics to entertain you. You increasingly do not like to have you diaper changed, and naps are still sometimes a bit of a battle.

You have such a cheerful, fun-loving disposition. You are just a happy little guy-- and you make us so, so happy. We love you, buddy.

Mommy