7 Month Update

Zane is 7 months old today and loving life. At his last visit to the hospital, Saturday, he weighed 20 lbs 6 oz. He hasn't been measured lately but he seems incredibly tall to me, long and lean, very cute. He has a lot more hair that sticks straight up on his head. It kind of looks and feels like feathers and it smells like baby heaven, I love it! He is still incredibly happy, laughing and squealing with delight all day long, except when he is not :)

Zane still loves his saucer and spends large quantities of time in it each day. He is tall enough to really enjoy his jumperoo downstairs now as well. He has been using it some for a couple months, but up until recently only his tippy toes could touch the ground. Now he can stand up and intensely jump. He loves it. He plays in this while Zach and I get extreme. He finds our exercising very entertaining, especially Monday nights Yoga, which I have to admit probably looked pretty hysterical. He is also still enjoying Tad.  He lights up just at the sight of him and we have been working on clapping to Tads songs. He has tried to clap a couple times and is definitely getting closer. Mooly has also made a reappearance into the rotation after we took her out of his room and brought her out to the play area. He of course still loves anything that makes noise and the he can chew on. We have toys, rattles, balls, and stuffed animals strewn all over the house already and he isn't even mobile yet.

He still doesn't have any teeth, though he has been teething for a long time. All in good time I guess. He is starting to work on crawling, if we can get him to stay on his stomach for longer than a minute.  He usually immediately turns back onto his back, but if he is interested in something or wants to get to a toy he will try to get up on his little knees. I think we are still a ways away from crawling and I am fine with that, I can''t imagine how life will change once he is mobile.

He has become a champion sitter upper over the past month, though I still don't trust him to sit alone upstairs with the hard wood floors ( not sure when I will, I see it as skull fracture in the making). His new fascination is with Zach and I's faces, hair, and glasses. He loves to pull on our noses, my hair, ears, ect. You can tell that he knows us and sometimes I feel like he is just studying my face, very cute.

He is still a good eater and was moved up to second foods this month. He has good eating days and then he has his not so good eating days ( all days are good eating days for me so I don't really understand this). We have started trying to give him things that he can pick up, little pieces of banana or bread. He really doesn't pick them up so much as play with them on his tray but it is a start. He had his first Ritz cracker ( in tiny pieces) at Grammi's house a couple weekends ago, and he loved it, of course. He also has good and not so good days with his sippy cup, but we continue to work with it and he is getting better at holding it himself. He would really love to use his spoon and feed himself. We let him try sometimes which results in him getting food every where but his mouth.

I think I am starting to see signs of some stranger anxiety coming on which I am not looking forward to. He really needs to be able to Zach and I at all times. If we leave the room he almost breaks his neck trying to find us. He has learned to turn his cry on and off quickly as well. He will cry the most pathetic cry you have ever heard when I leave the room and as soon as I am back in his line of sight it is all giggles. How do they learn this so young.

I wish I could report good news on the sleeping front but no such luck. He still is getting up at least two times a night. He has started to take a bottle at 5:30 and go back to  bed until 6:30-7am which is better than starting all my days at 5:30. We kind of got away from letting him put himself to sleep with all the holiday travel, but I tried to reinstate that this week and it seems to be going well. He put himself to sleep for one of his naps on Monday and put himself to sleep yesterday evening. I am hoping the getting up an hour or so after going to bed and being crabby was just from his recent illness and not a new sleep pattern.

Health wise he is doing amazing, besides his recent little fever. His scar look wonderful and is fading much quicker than I thought it would. I know that soon you will barely be able to see it. A plastic surgeon told me the other days that blonde's scars heal the best, hopefully that is true. He will get his monthly RSV shot for a few more months and possibly next year. We go back to the cardiologist on Feb. 11th, hopefully they will stop his Lasix at this time. I think after that he will have to go every three months for a year and then yearly for the rest of his life.

It has been a great month with a happy baby boy. During this month he had his first Christmas, welcomed in his first New Years, and he survived his first big road trip. It is so much fun watching him learn, grow, and change right before our eyes. I am so blessed to have such an amazing baby boy. He lights up my heart.

We love you little man!