typealice

09 Apr, 2008

Dear Ashden: Month Seven

Posted by: typealice In: Baby| Monthly Newsletters

Dear Ash,

You’re seven months old today! You are one busy, busy little man. Non-stop moving, and I know this is just the beginning. You’re still not crawling regularly, just a few steps here and there, but that army crawl of yours gets you from one side of the room to another or one room to another fast enough. The other day I was cooking something, looked down at you at my feet and noticed you were occupying yourself with something, so I bent down and what did you have in your hand? A soggy piece of popcorn that’d gotten away from the night before. You were munching on it! You’re not supposed to have popcorn yet, you’ve only just started eating real foods!

Yes, you’ve officially started eating real foods and although I’m excited for you, it also breaks my heart a little because it means you’re getting older. You started with a taste of banana one afternoon while I was eating one, and you loved it. Then you tried a little bit of avocado, but I noticed your cheeks got rosy after having it. We tried it again the next day and they got rosy again, so I’ve decided to hold off on the avocado until you’re at least nine months old. It’s a shame because I really wanted that to be your main food. I was going to avoid “cereals” but then I found some whole grain barley and brown rice cereals and before I knew it I’d bought them both and they turned out to be your favorite thing to eat. I mix them with breast milk, so I’m sure that has something to do with it.

I decided a long time ago that you were going to be an organic vegetarian, so you’ve also had organic butternut squash and carrots, both of which you like. Your grandmother bought you a bottle of organic apple puree and you did not like that at all. I gave you a couple of pieces of organic pear, and you wouldn’t even swallow it. Banana is by far your favorite fruit or vegetable and you love to eat it from your mesh feeder. You make this “nom nom nom” noise for the entire time you’re snacking away. It’s adorable.

I took a picture of your first “solid” poop (which wasn’t very solid). I’ll show you it when you’re older and will not subject it to the people of the internet.

You’ve found another love: cats. We catsit a cat named Rufus for a weekend this month and you would chase him around and grab at his fur and squeel and do this heavy panting thing when you got really excited about seeing him. It made us want to adopt a cat of our own. We’re still talking about it; we’d get an older cat that’s good with children rather than a kitten (even though they’re so much cuter) because I don’t have the energy to devote to a needy kitten. I hardly have the energy for you! Until we get a cat, I’ve been pointing out cats in the street and in books to you, and you get excited. A big smile comes across your face whenever you see one.

You were babbling “mamamamaaamaaa” at the beginning of the month and then as quickly as you started you stopped. You didn’t start talking again until a few days ago, when the “mamaamaaa” (and now “baabababaaa”) started again, out of nowhere. With those noises came very spitty raspberries, often splattering my face. You stick your tongue out and blow, which is a new method because before you’d just try to blow raspberries but you wouldn’t stick your tongue out so it’d just be a lot of forceful air and not much noise. I’m not sure which method I prefer, because although I’m happy that you figured out how to do it properly, it’s a lot more messy now.

You’ve been sleeping better than every lately, and a few nights this month you’ve slept from about 11 or 12 until 5am. You’ve pushed your nap schedule from every 1.5 hours on the dot to every 2 hours (and even less frequently in the late afternoon). Part of me is happy because now it’s much easier to do things with our days, and part of me misses the frequency of the breaks I get. There was one day this month when you didn’t want to nap for over three hours and I was ready to run out of the house screaming because you were exhausted and SO WHINY, but would not sleep. I sent an email to your father saying:

“HE WILL NOT NAP.

I WILL NOT BE HERE WHEN YOU GET HOME. I WILL BE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HALIFAX HARBOUR.”

And I meant it. (Okay, I didn’t mean it, but I did feel that dramatic.) But then you napped and everything got better. It was a close one. A few of your naps have even crossed over the 45 minute mark (rare until recently) and sometimes last an hour. Right now you’re snoozing away to the sound of “Mother’s Heartbeat” from the white noise maker and have been for an hour and a half!

You’ve completely mastered sitting up, going from laying on your back or front to sitting up, going from sitting to laying and going from sitting to crawling. Good boy!

Your mobility has allowed you to learn about your surroundings. Part of me wants to get a playpen so that when I’m cooking or something and my attention isn’t fully on you I don’t have to worry about you going around and say, putting popcorn in your mouth, but the other part of me wants to let you move around and explore. You will not stop being interested in the radiators, and are constantly crawling under my desk to try to put your fingers on it. In the past couple of days you found the door stoppers and you love grabbing it and hearing the boiiiii-iiing noise. We went grocery shopping the other day and I picked up some cilantro and I spent the rest of the time in the store trying to get it away from your grabbing hands. Then when we got home, I gave you a stem with a couple of leafs to explore and I could almost see the connections being made in your brain. You were enthralled with it. You’d never seen anything like it and your LEARNING was so… apparent! It was wonderful to witness.

A couple of days ago you came down with your third or fourth cold. I’m wondering where you keep getting them from? This one likely came from the communal toys from the program we’ve started attending called “Baby’s First Books.” But anyway, it resulted in your first nursing strike. The first night you’d gag when trying to latch on, the second day you only nursed a couple of times (whereas usually it’s once every 2-2.5 hours) and that night you didn’t nurse at all. Not once. It killed me. I was sleeping in a soaking wet shirt, soaked sheets, and you had to sleep propped up on a hard pillow so that you could breathe. Luckily it didn’t last longer than about 36 hours, but I was really worried about you not wanting to eat.

Your ability to learn astounds me. You now know what “stand up please” means, and you will listen when we say “no” or “eh eh eh eh eh ehhhhh” (as another way of saying “no”). You know the sign and word for “eat” and by god, that’s the fastest thing you’ve ever learned- probably learned it the first time you saw the sign for “eat.” You are so smart.