7 Months!

Sorry, sweet boy, but your six month post was missed thanks to two incredibly busy parents. But we love you!

You are absolutely so sweet. Your smile lights up your entire face, and you love watching everything! You are army crawling (this must be a trait of all my children as all army crawled for a long time before actually crawling), sitting up on your own, sitting in your high chair (good-bye bumbo!), and sleeping in your crib. Although you aren't really sleeping, but we will get to that in a second.

A few weeks ago, we finally started you on solid foods. We tried around 5 months because I just felt you were ready. You weren't sitting up on your own, but you had the pincer grasp and you were definitely interested. So we started you on peaches.

And you screamed, and you screamed, and you screamed. So after a week, I thought you weren't ready. So back to breastfeeding exclusively, and you were so much better. Started sleeping with only one night waking, and from there, I slowly reintroduced fruits (to help with your constipation...) only to again, have sleepless nights. To the point where it reminded me of Catherine's earlier days. During the day you were pretty sweet, but at night, you were a nightmare.

So I started keeping track, and guess what? We only fed you fruits, to help with constipation, and then you were up all night, screaming and kicking and crying and wouldn't calm down unless I nursed you.

From there, I noticed the trend and went right to veggies. Problem solved. Sort of. You're still kind of constipated, and it seems as though you have the same reaction when you have carrots. Sweet potatoes, squash and peas are ok, so that's what we give you. And that's ONLY what we give you for the time being.

I am not convinced there is an allergy there, much like Catherine. We have an appointment with an allergist, and I'm guessing that with that appointment will come some sort of weird fruit diagnosis, like Catherine's. I guess we will see.

Sleep is fleeting, and although I do NOT prefer co-sleeping, you usually end up in our bed because I have to nurse you in the middle of the night. There are about three hours every night where you will nurse every half hour to 45 minutes. It's rough. Finally, about 4:30-5:00 I move you back to your crib, and we have to wake you up to leave for daycare. It's an interesting schedule, but hopefully, not an infinite one. Because this mama needs sleep!!!

Beyond that, you have no idea how excited I am that you are starting to grow out of things. We have ditched the baby swing, the bumbo, the pack-n-play. We bought you a crib a month ago (only to have Catherine demand that she stop sleeping in hers earlier this week, so that's awesome...) and you have been sharing a room with James.

You love chasing the cat, watching your brother and sister chase each other around the house, and of course, laughing. You laugh so much, all the time, and it's awesome. It reminds me how precious children are. You, sir, are most definitely precious.

You are so easy-going, and travel well. You are always up for adventure, which makes the transition into a family of 5 so much easier than I thought it was going to be. I was paranoid, scared and really didn't want to be a family of 5, but I can't imagine it any other way. You are one of the three best things to every happen to me.

We are still nursing, and I am following your lead. We went from exclusively nursing a month ago, to now nursing about 4 times a day, and that weird three hour stint overnight. For having such issues with producing enough milk for Catherine, I sure am a cow! I don't overproduce by any means, but I am not stressed about providing enough milk for you. The other day, I was pumping at work and felt my pants getting wet - low and behold I have over pumped into the bottle, and it was spilling out the top. It was fun explaining that to the student who saw me ten minutes later and asked if I had spilled something.

So here we go. You are interested in your toys, you love your Gerber puffs, and you especially love cuddles. I am not a cuddler, but for you, little boy, I can be for a bit.

I love what you have done for our family, and I am so thankful we were blessed with you.