7 months

You are a delight. You are super happy and love to laugh. When you laugh, you scrunch up your nose and snort a little bit. It is AWESOME!

You aren't quite crawling yet. We thought you might be crawling by Christmas because you are so strong and you pump your little legs up and down a lot. However, you can roll and get just about anywhere you want to on the floor. You do tend to get stuck in reverse though. Meaning, you can actually crawl backwards. You can sit up like a champ and are loving exploring the world around you. This mostly means that you put anything you can in your mouth to check it. Boxes, toys, shoes, hands, and your favorite: paper products. This serves to be quite tricky for me, the delicate balance between allowing you to try things out and making sure you don't put anything in your mouth that is 1) dirty or 2) could choke you.

Generally speaking, you take 2 to 3 naps a day and go to bed around 830 at night. You tend to wake up a little after midnight every night to nurse and then sleep until about 6 AM. The past few days though, as you have been recovering from a double ear infection (the first time you've really been sick), you have been waking up at 3 AM and sometimes more than once in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sleepy but you're really really sweet and snuggly. And I just want you to get better so I'm willing to indulge you for a bit.

You had a great first Christmas and your brother was really sweet and helping you out. About halfway through the presents on Christmas morning, you figured out that we were tearing the paper off the gifts and could do it a little bit by yourself. That was pretty cool.

You are really figuring stuff out quickly right now. I think that you'll be doing some baby sign language within the next few weeks.

You are still an incredibly social little baby. You do what we call "fishing" for people. When we are in public, you pick out someone and stare at them until they look at you. If they don't look at you, you slowly start tilting your head to the side and eventually you'll tilt all the way until your head is almost upside down -leaning far out of our arms-until the person looks at you. Once you make eye contact, you spring up straight, smile really big and then shyly bury the side of your face into my (or your Dad's) chest. It is super fun to take you out in public. When someone smiles at you, you put on quite a show smiling with your eyes and mouth. we hear all the time what a beautiful baby you are! And it's true.

You are right at 16 pounds. You are a great little nurser, breast-feeding very quickly four to six times a day (not including night feedings). You eat solids twice a day and generally pretty easy to feed. However you HATE bananas. I make a lot of your food and am delighted that you like Lima beans so much-- they have a ton of protein (even more than any of the baby food meats) so, like your brother, you are getting some really good nutrients. Every few days you take an ounce or so of formula (if I'm out running errands or busy with your brother at bed time and your dad wants to put you to bed) but you aren't really a fan of formula or bottles. The most you have ever taken from a bottle is 3 ounces, but usually 1 ounce or less. By comparison, other babies your age and size would take 6 to 8 ounces of formula. You just prefer the fresh stuff and are willing to wait. ;)

Your hair has really come in over the past month and it's definitely lightening. When people see you they comment on your blonde hair. I knew it all along, so it doesn't surprise me but I think maybe some people didn't believe it.

You grab my hair and play with it a lot. You get excited and start shaking your arms which means - you're tugging my hai pretty hard. You have an incredible ability to get my baby hairs and go to town pulling on them. Yowza! Your dad laughs and says you are holding Mama by the reins.

My favorite part of right now – you kiss me ALL the time. Still. If you are not in my arms and sitting on the ground for a bouncer, you look at me, scrunch your nose, close your eyes and smack your lips together like a kiss. It is awesome! If someone is is holding you lean over and reach for me. When I take you from their arms, you laugh and kiss my face. It should be noted that a "kiss" from you is more like an open mouth slobber all over my face. But it is generally noted by anyone around that you love your mom. This makes me the happiest person on earth. I love you just as much – actually, probably a little bit more.