Friday, November 20, 2009

Happy 7 Months Old Peanut

Dear Peanut,

You are seven months old today. You are practically a teenager. It is going so fast. On the one hand I am loving watching you develop and get bigger and start to do all these things on your own, and on the other hand I want you to slow the hell down and just allow me to enjoy you being a baby! Because every day it seems like you are getting further and further away from babyhood and closer and closer to toddlerhood.

The biggest change this last month has been that you are now fully engaged in eating food. Like real food. Surprisingly I am making all of your baby food. No one believed I would actually do it (least of all me) but I am actually really enjoying it. Maybe since you are nursing less and less it makes me feel like we are still connected in some way. But every weekend I bust out with the knife and cutting board and slice and dice and steam and puree everything I can get my hands on. And so far you love it all! We have yet to find something you don't love. So far you are eating: rice cereal, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, broccoli, green beans, butternut squash, winter squash, peaches, apricots, mangos, carrots and many many combinations of the above food. I haven't yet introduced strawberries or berries of any kind, or any meat, but that will come this month. You are ready. I also haven't given you any finger foods yet, but I think that might be because I am overly paranoid after our situation with your brother. I will get over it, in fact just today I gave you a hunk of his soft pretzel from the mall and let you gum it to death. You loved it. So I will start giving you chunks soon. But right now, you LOVE to eat. I freeze your food in ice cube trays and right now you are eating approximately 10 cubes a day plus about 2 ounces of milk with rice cereal in it. Like I said, you LOVE you some food. Here is a shot of you in your high chair, kickin' it with your foot up on the side, awaiting your next meal.
As you can see in this picture, you are still drooling like a fiend. If I don't put you in bibs constantly, all of your clothing looks like the above picture. But! There is a reason for all of this drool. You got your first two bottom teeth! They popped through a couple of weeks ago and are now almost big enough to see when you smile. Teeth at 6 months...what a concept! Again, already trying to better your brother who didn't spark a tooth until after 10 months. But you have 'em and you want to use 'em. You chew on everything. Literally everything. It gets exhausting sometimes. You will reach as far as your little hands can reach and whatever is within your grasp goes straight into your mouth. Your brother is learning to keep his drawings and toys out of your reach or else he looks over and finds them right inside your big chompers. And he isn't so much a fan of that. You are now officially old enough to annoy your brother. Good job. He has been annoying us for years...it is time someone return the favor. :)

Another big change for you this month is sitting up. No more laying around like a baby for you. You want to be sitting so you can see the world. I have to admit I am pretty stoked about this new development because it finally means you can start sitting in carts and high chairs when we are out at places. That makes like easier for Mommy, so thanks for that. Here is a phone pic of you sitting in a cart for the first time. (Gigi did the bam bam on your hair...don't blame me!).
I had to cover all surfaces around you with my jacket because we all know you would have been sucking all over that cart and frankly there is not another germ-ier place in all of the world, so that just couldn't happen. We have since dug out your brother's old cart cover thing and that now resides in the back of the car so we don't have this problem in the future.

Another brilliant thing about you sitting up is that I can now plop you on the floor next to your box of toys and leave you there. You will sit for up to an hour just playing and checking out the toys in your little box. You love it. Sometimes you still bail forward and do a face plant but you rarely get upset about it. You sorta look up at me like, "What the hell just happened?" Then you scoot around on your tummy going backwards and away from your toys. This generally pisses you off so you end up yelling for me once you have wedged yourself under my desk or the couch or chair and I come and sit you back up next to your toys and we repeat the process all over again. Good times. Here is a shot of you sitting next to your toys.

You are the happiest baby I know. You smile constantly and that smile is so contagious. Your eyes light up a room. I don't know how it is possible for you to be so happy and so feisty at the same time, but you are. You grunt and groan and scream loudly if you can't reach something you want. But as soon as you get what you want, all smiles again. There isn't much that upsets you and pretty much everything makes you happy. I have said it before and I'll say it again. You truly are a ray of sunshine. You make me smile and laugh so many times a day that I lose count.

There is one area that we need to work on. That is your hair. Every other part of you is absolutely adorable, but my darling...oh, that hair. At least you have hair...I will give you that. But it's just so...well...I don't even know how to explain it. You have a lovely covering around your entire head that is about an inch long. This is perfect and beautiful; wouldn't change a thing. But then there is the top. See you had hair on the top of your head when you were born and it is still there. It has just gotten longer. And it honestly looks like a bad comb over. Not only that, but the hair on the back of your head, where you lie on it, well it usually sticks straight out like some sort of static cling gone wrong. And the stuff from the front is getting so long that it hangs in your eyes and I usually swipe it off to one side, but that doesn't always work out so well. So Peanut, if there is one thing I can ask of you it would be this. Can you make your hair grow a little faster so we can do something adorable with it? Because while I find you completely precious, this is usually what your hair ends up looking like...
Let's do a day in the life and then wrap up this long post. As of right now, seven months, a typical day for you goes like this:

You wake up anywhere between 5:30 and 7:00am and nurse. The earlier it is the higher the likelihood that you will go back to sleep. Either way you hang out in my bed until around 8:00 or 8:30 (these are the non-daycare/work days we are talking about here). Then we get up and you play either in the living room with your toys, or in your brother's room. Around 9:00 I feed you breakfast that is usually two cubes of fruit and some rice cereal. Then you hang out in your high chair while I do stuff and around 10:00am you nurse and then go down for your morning nap. You have gotten MUCH better at napping in the past month, so thank you for that. You usually sleep between an hour and a half and two hours. Then when you wake up I generally nurse you and then head out for the day. I bring food with me and when your brother and I eat lunch, you join us. Usually two cubes fruit and two cubes veggies. You LOVE to eat at the table with us. Then we do whatever with our day and hang out. Around 2:30 or 3:00 you nurse again and go down for your afternoon nap. You don't sleep as long for this one, but you do sleep. So again, thank you for that. Once you are up you usually have a nursing snack around 4:00pm. Hang out, play with toys and then around 5:30 or so we have dinner. Usually 4 cubes of veggies and rice cereal. You sit in your high chair at the table while the rest of the family eats and then you have your bath. You have always loved your bath and still do, although you are not fitting so well in that little infant tub thing I have for you. Mental note...must find new solution. After your bath it is jammies and a little play time. Right at 7:30pm we change your diaper, put on your sleep sack and go in the living room to turn out all the lights and have your final nursing session. You no longer ever fall asleep while nursing or for the 10-15 minutes that I rock you in the rocking chair after, but you always go to sleep in your crib without a fuss. I put you down, turn on your little aquarium thing in your crib and kiss you goodnight and walk out. You play for about 10 minutes at the most and go to sleep. Sometimes once or twice in the middle of the night you wake up wanting your binky but usually you sleep straight through. You rule.

I know I say this every month but you have brought so much to our lives. Your brother and I love you more than you will ever understand (until you have children of your own). Every single day I am so thankful that I was blessed enough to have the two beautiful children that I do and I am so glad that I get to share my life with you. Happy 7 months Peanut. I will leave you with your seven month bean bag shot. And you can note how you were sitting up trying to grab for the camera during these shots. :)

2 comments:

Guinevere said...

We have exactly the same combover style here! If it bothers you, you could always cut the top to match the sides.

AuntFancy said...

Aww, she's so damn cute! I'm REALLY looking forward to spending some time with you all next week, and getting to know the little person she's developing into. :)