Seven months, oh my

My seven-month-old baby boy.  He breaks my heart.  

We've now been experimenting with the solids for a month.  We've had mixed results.  Once he's into a food, he's really into it--but it usually takes a few introductions.  At this point he's had sweet potatoes, rice cereal, bananas, peas, and pears--and in that order.  Despite my deep seeded aversion, he totally likes peas.  We've had to take a few breaks from the solids because of another first.  This month he got sick for the first time.  I have no use for sickness in babies, no use at all.  He's had three vomiting spells and they were each the saddest thing you could ever seen.  Some crappy advice from our former doctor to not nurse him for 12 hours and feed him Pedialyte instead sealed the deal for me in making her our "former" doctor.  We followed that crappy advice (well at least for 6 hours) the first time, and great unhappiness was had by all.  The event did reinforce to me that I should always follow my instincts--they are there for a reason.  We have a new doctor who wears Garfield ties and is a delight.  

And it turns out separation anxiety is not just something puppies get.  Two mornings this week he has broken down in tears when I left him.  This of course caused me to do the same shortly thereafter.  I have, however, figured out how to squeeze in a few extra baby minutes into the day.  It turns out there is a stop for the higher speed/fewer stop Metra trains one mile from our house.  The train ride is only 13 minutes and Eli (and his daddy and puppies) can walk the mile from our house--so my non-Eli-having commute time has been cut from 45 minutes to about 20.  

He's also started to look a bit like me, finally.  More specifically, I think he's started to look like my dad.  It's been funny to look at him and recognize a bit of myself in him.  I think his Aunt Robin was right when she assured me shortly after he was born that babies usually look like their fathers at first so that their fathers will know they are theirs and won't kill them. 

He has come to tolerate sitting quite a bit more and can mostly do it on his own and would totally be allowed to do so on his own if we had a helmet for him.  He can stand with the smallest amount of assistance.  No progress to speak of on the crawling front.  Mostly he gets part of the way there and melts down.  He has discovered that rolling can be a very effective means of both transport and entertainment.  

People often ask me if he is sleeping through the night.  The short answer is pretty much.  The long answer involves my explaining that we co-sleep so any awakenings are  not very long or disruptive.  The long answer usually also involves my having to defend co-sleeping--but that's a whole other post ;-).  Nighttimes for us though are A-OK.

We are finally maybe easing out of swaddling him for naps. We're experimenting with letting him have an arm or two. 

Eli is madly in love with his puppies.  Jack remains his semi-tolerant keeper who enjoys the occasional petting Eli loves to dole out.  He is not as much a fan of the ear pulling.  Eli thinks Leroy is hilarious. Kenny has taken to putting Eli in the Bjorn and chasing Leroy around the house.  This results in great baby giggles.  Baby will also giggle if a dog or person barks at him.  He giggled today when a one-eyed dog came and snatched his sock off of his foot at the dog park.

And finally, this has been the great month of songs.  Singing to him has proven to be an often effective means of curing a crying jag.  It depends on his mood.  Sometimes he needs "Hush Little Baby," and sometimes he needs "Old MacDonald."

Our friends Ben and Julie just had a baby this week, and our friends Patrick and Amy will be doing the same in a couple of months.  I am so excited for them because I know how really awesome it is to have one of these.