Where is time going? Our little dude is 7 months old now, and so much fun. I love him more and more every day, and every age is “the most fun age.” I’m sure that’ll stop at some point (not the loving him part – the “this is the most fun age part”) – maybe at the terrible twos? I can’t wait until he can start talking to us. He is so funny and full of personality and I can’t wait to understand a little more about what’s rattling around in that little brain of his.
Stats: 17.5 lbs and 28 inches. Even though that seems huge to me, he’s dropped quite a bit, percentile-wise, which has me concerned. I know some ebb and flow is normal, but I can’t help but worry whether he’s eating enough. He doesn’t seem to eat as much as other babies I know, and he doesn’t always finish his bottles at daycare, which bothers me (more on that in another post). But the pediatrician didn’t seem concerned, so I’m trying not to be either. Easier said than done…
Sleeping: Hallelujah, we have finally turned a corner on sleep. He’s waking up once or twice per night these days, and only needs to nurse back to sleep about half the time. The other times, if we let him fuss a bit, he’ll usually put himself back to sleep, and often without even full-on crying. He mostly just whimpers and whines and rolls around, and then it just stops and he’s out cold almost as soon as it started. To be honest, though, I don’t really mind getting up with him once per night. I feel like I see him so little during the workday, so the middle of the night nursings are sort of our special time. I sit in the rocking chair in his room and we snuggle while he eats. On the weekends he usually wakes up around 5 or 6, which is when we get up during the week, so I just bring him into bed with us and he’s happy to roll around in between us for a while (usually slapping our faces and trying to get us to play!), before he’ll conk out again. Most weekends we sleep in until around 8, and we’ve slept as late as 10 on occasion! I feel sort of spoiled and know it won’t be long before he’s an active toddler, raring to go at the crack of dawn!
Eating: With the exception of Thanksgiving, we’ve just been introducing one new food per week. This last month he’s had bananas and squash, and we meant to introduce pears last weekend, but the pears we got at the store still don’t feel very ripe. As soon as they ripen more, I’ll mush them up for him. So far the only thing he’s not crazy about is avocado, but I find if I mix it with something else like sweet potatoes he’ll eat it up. He didn’t like squash at first either, but after a couple days he started eating it. Our next green veggie we’re trying is green beans next week. We’ll see how that goes! I’m tempted to start giving him finger foods since he’s developing the motor skills for picking up small objects, but I’m terrified of choking. I know I’ll have to get over that fear eventually. He can’t eat mush forever. Still doesn’t have any teeth.
Likes/Dislikes: Kid likes to MOVE! He is crawling like a champ now and looooves to be on the floor. We’ve had to watch the dogs a little more closely because of it. We had an incident a couple weeks ago where Stewie growled and snapped at him when Theo got too close while Stewie was chewing on a bone. I, of course, FREAKED out. I would never get rid of my dogs, but I also could never live with myself if something happened. After talking with the president of the rescue group I volunteer with, though, she assured me it was completely normal. That dogs will correct babies/kids, and that if Stewie had wanted to bite, he would have. It was a warning, and we shouldn’t punish him for warning, because if you extinguish a dog’s ability to warn, that’s when you get dogs who seem to snap out of nowhere. When that happens, it usually isn’t out of nowhere, but the dog had been taught not to warn and so the dog doesn’t act until he just can’t take it anymore. So we make sure all bones and dog toys are picked up when Theo is on the floor, and we make sure Theo doesn’t disturb the dogs in their beds. Our rule of thumb these days is that we allow the dogs to approach Theo (as long as they don’t totally molest his face off), but we don’t allow Theo to approach the dogs. We’re just playing things safe until they get more accustomed to each other. Apparently this is very normal once crawling starts, and things may get a little off again once he starts walking. It’s our job as parents to ensure everyone is safe. Wow – that got long and detailed. It really isn’t as big of a deal as I felt it was at the time. Just a good reminder that dogs will be dogs and we need to respect them and not put them in a position where they feel the need to defend themselves.
Other likes continue to be mostly the same – bathtime, meeting new people, going grocery shopping, etc. There isn’t a ton that he doesn’t like these days. Still not crazy about getting strapped into the car seat, but he doesn’t fuss as much as he used to.
Mama: Breastfeeding is still going well for me. Pumping is still annoying. I went out of town on a business trip last week, and pumping and scalding my milk was quite the hassle since I didn’t have access to a stove. I had to scald my milk in a bottle warmer from the hotel room (using this method). I found the bottle warmer method to be quite a bit slower than just dumping everything into a pan on the stove and heating it – and trying to pack my pump, cooler bag, bottle warmer and two days’ worth of clothes into a carry-on bag was like playing a really frustrating game of Tetris – but it’s nice to know I have an alternative way to scald my milk when I’m out of town, and I was able to bring back more milk than he drank while I was gone, so I didn’t fall behind on maintaining my freezer stash. In exciting news, I’m getting a new pump! Since I have new insurance, I figured I’d take advantage of the fact that breast pumps are 100% covered now. I’m not crazy about my current pump (Ameda Purely Yours), so I ordered a Medela, which I had heard good things about. I’m really hoping I like this pump better than my old one, but at the very least, it’ll be nice to have a backup in case one breaks, and also this way I can keep one at the office and one at home instead of lugging it back and forth every day.
Okay, I’ll wrap up this already long post with some photos from the past month…
Keeping up with the Hoffmans 
His chunky legs are so so so adorable!!