7 months

Dear Mr. Will,

You are 7 months old! You are now closer to your one year birthday than you are to the day you were born. THAT is insane.

I say this every month, but I feel like you are a completely different baby this month. Just in the past two weeks (at 6.5 months), you've gotten your first tooth, you started saying "momma," and you apparently prefer to sleep on your tummy now.

I kind of thought that you had been "teething" for a while, but I feel like that is such a blanket statement. You never got overly fussy, and you never got super drooly, but you constantly would put things into your mouth. But then again, I know that's part of your development right now, and how you discover the world around you, according to child development literature. But, you most definitely now have a lower left tooth now, and I'm pretty sure the lower right is going to pop through any day now. Thankfully, this whole teething process doesn't seem like it's been too terribly hard on you, and hopefully that will continue.

You have said your first word, and my sweet baby boy, it was "momma!" I may or may not have been working with you for a while to say it, but you are finally saying it on your own, and I've never heard a sweeter sound in my life. You usually only say it when you want something (usually for me to pick you up), but I'll take it anyway I can get it!

You are still a very content baby. For that I am very thankful. However, because you are so content, I was completely convinced that it would be a year before you even started to think about crawling. Well, you proved me wrong and literally less than 24 hours of me making that bold statement to your Mamaw, I got a note sent home from daycare that you "army crawled" that day. Of course, we've tried to entice you with toys (and the iPad, if we're going to be honest) to get you to do it at home, but we have yet to see it. You will do a total 360 on your tummy in no time flat though. You've also learned to scoot yourself backwards, but you haven't gotten up on all fours quite yet.

You also finally discovered how to flip from your back to your tummy- in the middle of night about a week ago. So this past week has been a little hard on you with your sleeping, because it took you a few nights to figure out how to get comfortable again without fully waking yourself up. But you've discovered that you like sleeping on your tummy in the process. I still put you on your back when I lay you down though.

Now that you can flip both ways, you are on the move. Your monthly picture had a new level of difficulty this month, and I'm sure this is only going to get more challenging!

You are finally getting a little more hair on your head! Maybe it's all the food you've been eating. :) But I do believe we've got a blonde haired, blue eyed little boy on our hands.

Speaking of eating, you are doing so well with your food. We've introduced you to lots of different things over the past month, and although you have your favorites, so far we haven't found anything that you DON'T like. I'm still making all of your food, and so far you've had sweet potatoes (a favorite!), squash, zucchini, carrots, green beans, green peas (a favorite!), and I've got some butternut squash ready to go for tonight's dinner. As far as fruits go, you (like most babies) really love fruit. You've had pears, apples, avocado (not a favorite, but you'll eat it), blueberries, bananas, peaches, and apricots. I've made some mango but we haven't tried it yet. I mix cereal in with your fruits so that you can get some extra iron, and sometimes if I've made the veggies a little too thin, I'll add some cereal to those too. We started with rice cereal, but now are doing oatmeal cereal. You've never eaten cereal alone, just mixed in with you food.

Your current feeding schedule is: nurse at 5:30, bottle at 9, 1, 4, nurse at 7:30. You could easily go longer between feedings, but this is the schedule that your class is on at daycare. The amount you drink from a bottle varies, but is probably an average of 6 ounces. You eat your food at 7:30 (fruit and cereal),11:30 (veggie), and 6 or 6:30 (veggie).

You haven't really made any changes in your sleeping patterns since last month (other than the flipping and flopping that wakes you up sometimes). You are asleep by 8 and wake up at 5:30 on the dot almost every morning. I know you should be sleeping longer than that by now, but honestly, I love that time with you I think just as much as you do. That is only one of the two times I get to nurse you during the day (while I'm working), and I cherish that time with you. You go back to sleep, and I wake you up around 6:45 or 7 to go to daycare. You nap from about 9-10:30 or 11, and then again in the afternoon (roughly 1-2:30 or 3).

You are still such a happy baby. You can have your whiney moments, especially if it is getting close to your bedtime, but your fun moments far, far outweigh your more fussy moments. I don't think you've ever met a stranger, and I still hear on a weekly basis how big of a flirt you are. I love that you are so happy, and I love that you are so friendly to everyone. I hope that continues to be a major part of your growing personality.

We don't go to the pediatrician again until you are 9 months old, so I'm not sure exactly how much you weigh right now, but according to our scales at home, you weigh about 20.5 pounds. No clue how long you are, but you are finally able to wear clothes that match your age range right now without them being way too long. You are wearing mostly 6-9 clothes, and I've actually had to put away some of the 6 month things already. You still manage to fit into a few random 3-6 month onesies, but I think they maybe just run unusually large. I just had to get you some new PJ's, and there are some that are 9 month that actually fit you pretty well. You are wearing size 3 diapers.

You are seriously doing something new every single week, and sometimes every day lately. You never cease to amaze your daddy and I with everything that you do, and although we've loved every age, you are SO much fun right now. We love you more than you will ever know!