Seven Months Old

(The quality of these pictures is going downhill as Beckett becomes more mobile. He crawled off the chair twice, Kolby (barely) catching him both times. We'll take what we can get!)

Well just about as soon as I decided that I’m going to embrace Beckett growing up, I have to eat my words.  My baby grew up too much for me this month.  He changed more in just a couple weeks than he had in the past couple months.  The big thing is that he’s gotten so active that he doesn’t want to sit still with us anymore.  Y’all... it breaks my heart.  He’s squirmy in our laps now and just wants to get on the floor and play and move.  At church we had to start dropping him off in the nursery during the sermon.  I feel like it’s the ending of an era (overdramatic, much?). 

On the bright side, he’s laughing a lot more now and learned this fun “trick” where if you shake your head at him he’ll shake his head back, usually accompanied by a silly scream.  He’s getting more interactive every day and it’s a ton of fun.  But the independence he’s developing—it’s not my favorite.

He’s still Grabby McGrabberson.  I’m constantly having to adjust because every day it seems he can reach further and faster and knock something onto the floor, get something that’s not his, etc.  Kolby and I joke that we could set 10 things in front of him and he would grab the one thing that does not belong to him.  It’s so funny how he’ll look right past a pile of his toys (even new, fun ones) and go for the shoe, phone, remote, etc.  We had a little honeymoon phase when he learned to sit up on his own, where we could eat dinner or sit and chat with someone and it was super easy because he would just sit on our laps and be totally content.  Now he’s lunging for anything within eyesight and gets frustrated if he can’t have it.

A big new thing this month is food!  We gave Beckett his first solid food a couple days after his six-month birthday.  We started with pureed avocado, then moved on to pureed peas, then gave him some hard-boiled egg yolk (which he LOVED), then pureed green beans.  He’s learning quickly what this eating thing is all about, and seems to enjoy everything he’s tried so far.  Our doctor suggested starting with green veggies then moving on to orange/yellow veggies, then fruit.  So next on the menu was sweet potatoes and roasted yellow bell peppers, and he also tried banana (and ate half a banana in one sitting!).  He still gets all his sustenance from breastmilk; the solids at this point are just to help him learn how to eat food and also provide some extra vitamins and minerals. 

Also, Beckett is now rolling over!  He took his time deciding it was worth it, but he now rolls over when he wants to, usually back to front.  He scoots a little bit too, mostly backwards, and he can turn (counterclockwise only!).  He’s also gotten a lot more consistent lately with liking to stand.  For the longest time he had no interest in locking his legs.  And just this past week he learned how to maneuver from sitting to lying on his belly.

His sleeping isn’t much changed from my last update.  He typically sleeps from 9pm-6am, although it’s still not uncommon for him to wake up closer to 5 or 5:30am, and every now and then he’ll wake up once in the middle of the night.  We’re happy with his sleeping and are all enjoying the full night of rest!

He naps from about 7:30-9am, again for another hour or so around lunch, and usually a shorter nap later in the afternoon.  He seems to have become more sensitive to getting tired now—if he’s been awake for too long and gets bored he’ll sometimes start to get a little fussy, whereas “fussy” wasn’t really in our vocabulary the past couple of months.  He also protests loudly now when he’s hungry and I set him down while I get ready to nurse him.  Just in the half a minute it takes for me to get a glass of water he’ll break out into this really high-pitched whiny cry.  Apparently when it’s time to eat, it’s time to eat!

Things we did this month:

-Beckett tried food for the first time

-Celebrated Kolby’s first Father’s Day

-Beckett laughed REALLY hard at Kolby tossing a ball in the air and catching it

-Had a play date with Maximilian, Collin, and Declan

-Swam at Chip & Sherry’s house and at Becky’s house

-Spent a long weekend in Wimberley with Poppa and CeeCee

-Beckett’s first trip to the river in Wimberley

-Visited Gran and Daddy Monk in Athens, TX

-Splashed around in our tiny inflatable pool

-Had lunch with Mimi and Grandfather at their community center

-Celebrated July 4^th with Brad/Remy/cousin Tucker and Chris/Ashley/cousin Liam

Things Beckett loves:

-Loves grabbing his feet and holding on to them, especially during diaper changes or in his car seat

-Rolling over

-When Kolby tries to make him laugh

-Standing

-Looking at Maya

-Playing with other kids and babies

-Being tickled

-Tags—he LOVES to play with and suck on the tags of his toys, bibs, etc.

Things I love about Beckett:

-How easy it is to make him smile

-How precious his smile is (and how gummy it is… not sure how long that will last!)

-His hair getting longer

-Swimming with him

-I feel like I’ve hit a really good groove with nursing him—I’ve always loved it so much, but now that he goes longer between feedings (4 hours) we can do more things without me having to game plan where I can find a spot to feed him.  And it’s been a long time since I’ve thought, “Man, it’s time to feed him AGAIN?!?” (moms of young babies, you know what I mean!) or been inconvenienced at all by the logistics of being a nursing mom.

-His sweet and silly sounds