7 Months Old

Ever heard the expression, "The days are long, but the years are short"? After Eli, I have discovered how true that statement is. Every month, I am amazed at how the time has gone by so quickly. I think back to when Eli was little and how all he did was lay and look at the world around him. I remember nursing him and how he fit so perfectly across my stomach. I remember thinking that there was no way that he would ever fit into anything other than a newborn diaper or a newborn sleeper.

Now I am amazed at how many clothes I pack away at the end of every month that he didn't even get a chance to wear or wore only once. When I rock him to sleep, his legs now stretch all the way across my stomach and touch the arm of the recliner. Now instead of just laying and looking at the world, he ACTIVELY explores it...and has the bumps and bruises to prove it!

No matter how much he has changed and grown, one thing has stayed the same. Josh and I are completely smitten with this little boy. He is the love of our lives and makes us so happy. We are so thankful God chose us to be his parents :)

Now for the montly updates:

Sleeping: Eli is doing really well sleeping at night. He usually goes down for the night between 7 and 7:30 and will usually sleep until 5:30 or 6 the next morning. He'll wake up every now and then, but if he can find his pacifier, he'll go right back to sleep. He loves his little lovey-a brown furry blanket-that his cousin Jordan gave him before he was born. He takes his little hands and just rubs the blanket back and forth until he falls asleep.

Eating: Eli is doing much better with the bottle. At one point the doctor suggested taking him off baby food until he started accepting the bottle better. We did that for a week and then I started re-introducing baby food to him again, one meal at a time. Right now he gets a bottle about 5 times a day, usually around 5 ounces at a time. His last bottle before bed will usually have 6 or 7 ounces in it, but that's the only time he will ever take that much formula. He's not really interested in holding the bottle himself; he tries to every now and then, but he usually ends up chunking it across the room. I'll admit that there have been a few times that he really needed to eat, so I popped in Baby Praise and fed him on the Boppy pillow while he watched it. Sometimes a mother's got to do what a mother's got to do. He still LOVES baby food. I don't think there is a flavor he doesn't enjoy eating. He hates rice cereal, but LOVES eating oatmeal. I've tried the multi-grain, but he's not a fan of it just yet; we'll keep trying.

Naps: He'll usually take a long morning nap and a long afternoon nap every day (when I say long, I mean 50 minutes to an hour). The rest of the day, he'll take two or three 30 minute cat naps and be perfectly happy when he wakes up.

Likes:
-REALLY REALLY likes Mommy right now
-LOVES his Daddy
-watching Baby Praise
-playing on Mommy and Daddy's bed
-crawling over whoever is on the floor with him
-pulling up
-listening to Mommy sing silly songs
-his Lion puppet, his monkey, and his toucan (they all make noises and he loves that)
-NUK pacifier (it's great now that he can put it in his own mouth now)
-chewing on anything and everything
-cameras, iPhones, computers, and remotes
-being outside and especially touching grass
-paper (he's most recently found the magazine rack and enjoys trying to rip them to shreds)
-LOVES being in just a diaper
-catching bubbles (thanks, Cheryl and Brody, for those AWESOME bubbles from Gymboree!)

Dislikes:
-being rocked to sleep, even when he's exhausted and could fall over any minute because he's so tired
-confinement, especially the carseat (he's learned to arch his back when I put him in there and it makes it quite difficult to buckle him in)
-getting his diaper changed (it's quite a challenge now to put a diaper on him because he twists and turns so much)
-getting dressed (see above note about twisting and turning)

New Accomplishments:
-pulling up (he's so proud of himself when he does this in his crib. His whole face lights up from ear to ear)
-crawling (he can take 2-3 solid steps and then reverts back to the army crawl/lunge
-cutting his four top teeth....all at the same time! POOR POOR BABY! I see all four white spots up there and I can't even imagine how bad his little gums hurt. His hands do not leave his mouth these days and he is constantly looking for something to chew on. I pray they break through the surface really really soon.

I can't wait to see how much my little guy will accomplish this month. Maybe I'll be able to add some babbling and even maybe a "ma-ma" or "da-da" to the list. We've been practicing and we'll keep practicing until I hear those sweet little words :)