Carter: 7 months old

What's new...
He is sitting up on his own!  This feels like such a huge milestone.  He can actually enjoy independent play.  He sits with a basket full of little baby toys, by himself, pulling out each one, then chewing and inspecting it.  I think this may be my favorite.  He can play and explore, but not mobile yet.  He really wants to be mobile.  When he was sitting up this afternoon, he actually walked his hands out forward to all fours and fell within a few seconds.  When on his belly, He can push himself up so his belly is off the ground, but he hasn't gotten on all fours yet.  He can pivot when laying on his belly and he kicks relentlessly as if to try and move forward.  He is becoming such a little person.  He definitely doesn't seem like such a baby anymore.  It used to be that we would just take him along anywhere, but now we're having to think about bringing a snack, or how it coincides with his naps (not to say we never skip naps, because then I would literally never leave the house between the two of them).  He is communicating with squeal, smiles, hand motions, facial expressions, and body language.  It is so adorable.  When he really wants something, he moves his fingers/hands/wrists fidgeting like crazy and squeals.  He especially does this when we have food that he wants.

He likes reading (and chewing) on books.  He loves light up toys.  He loves little matchbox cars.

Eating
I am still breastfeeding every couple hours during the day.  I also try to give him 2 "meals" or solid food servings a day.  He definitely gets one "meal" usually oatmeal mixed with apple/banana puree.  A couple weeks ago, I made a few small batches of baby food and froze it in ice cube trays.  I kept thinking to myself, 'How are we here already?  Wasn't I just doing this for Maddie?'  If we're eating something, he wants it.  It could be anything.  We've been letting him taste just about anything.  He chews on bread/soft pretzels a lot, he eats baby cheese puffs, rice cakes, biscuits, he's tasted peanut butter, yogurt, he eats chunks of fruit (pear, apple, banana, persimmon) in the little mesh food thing, then regular baby food purees like squash/sweet potato/etc.

Sleeping
He goes to bed at 6:30/7pm.  I feed him again before I go to bed (he usually wakes up around 9/10pm but if not, I feed him and I don't think he fully wakes up really).  This past week, I started putting ear plugs in.  So really, he could be waking up.  I don't know.  I'm actually going to test out the waters and see maybe tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Getting a full night sleep is pretty amazing in all areas of life: physical, emotional, and spiritual.  You don't know what you have until you don't have it, or, you only have it in 2 hour increments, as was my case.  I really believe that he is big and old enough to go 8 hours.  This past week, he has been waking up around 7 or 8am.

He takes 2 naps a day.  Some days, I really think he needs/wants to have a third nap, but it's really hard to get him to go down even though he acts exhausted around 4-5pm, so I've given up on that one.  He takes his first nap around 9-11am.  His second is about 1:30pm usually lasts an hour or less.

[Carter's birth which was yesterday] [Maddie at 7 months]