After Gabe hit six months I wasn’t sure what to expect for month seven. Six months is a big mile stone because a lot of developmental stuff happens around that time. Turns out seven months is just as interesting. While things may have started at six months the volume sure was turned up for month seven. Mobility increased, food became much more fun, and teeth!

Crawling

Crawling is the name of the game this month. Shortly after last month’s post Gabe started army crawling. Within a couple of weeks he had reached expert level. Then the actual crawling came. Though not all at once. At first it was only three movements and then he would drop to army. For a while he did a combination of the two. Now? The world is his oyster and nothing is going to stop him from exploring. It is really cute to see him use his target locking system and crawl after targeted item. That means life just got a whole lot more complicated now that I can no longer put him down in the middle of the room with toys and have him stay in the general area. I had to quickly maneuver furniture to create a safe area for him while I figured out the best way to keep him safe. He wasn’t a fan of it because he couldn’t see me through my configuration. Which made sense. With that in mind I ended up purchasing some play yard fencing. Sturdy, configurable, gives visibility, indoor/outdoor and seems like it will have long term usability. So far I’ve been very happy with it. Gabe? He puts up with it because well he has to. It certainly isn’t something he stays in all day, I still find I need to let him free crawl under a watchful eye. Even if he doesn’t like it, it’s nice to have somewhere other than his crib to put him where he is safe.

Safe though is a relative word. With the crawling in full force we have now entered the head bonking stage. In addition to crawling he is also sitting on his knees. It’s funny, he seems to be doing everything but sitting on his butt! He does so many variations of propping himself up which that he sometimes ends up in downward dog! But this has come with some falling over, falling forward, or just plain hitting his head on things. We’ve had a few bad ones but he is learning quick! And thankfully he seems to be doing pretty well about knowing when he really needs to cry or not. Wouldn’t surprise me if next month he is pulling himself up completely.

All I want for Christmas…

… is my two front teeth! We have teeth! His first two bottom teeth have popped through. There really wasn’t a forewarning (sorry people who have said he his teeth were coming through at three months!). One day I saw two little white bumps in his lower gums and they slowly made their way through. Sharp!! So far it hasn’t been a terrible process. There are days where you can tell he is hurting but with these two teeth he has done incredibly well. We shall see how the rest of the teeth go.

Nom nom nom

Last month began the introduction of solid food. We started with avocado and was met with a combination of disgust and not quite knowing what to do with it. A bit of gagging and sticking out his tongue. Which is understandable given that he has only consumed breastmilk up till this point. It is amazing to watch and see all the learning that is taking place. Once he got the hang of things food became much more fun. When he is hungry is definitely an engaged eater. But when he is done… he lets you know! Squirming, pressing back, keeping his mouth closed. It’s good to seem him listening to his body at a young age!

For now he is eating homemade purees or mashed portions of what we are eating. It makes sense for us right now. While I am interested in baby lead weaning I just don’t have the time or energy to research it. So much of life right now is a bandwidth issue. More than likely he will only be eating purees for a couple of months before moving on to small bits of soft food. Thus far we have introduced: avocado, green beans, carrots, peas, kabocha, sweet potato, zucchini, spinach & sweet potatoes, spiced carrots, apples & cinnamon, mango, and melon. Some he liked, some he didn’t. Too soon to rule anything out as his palate has just begun to develop. Besides, the first year of food is all about fun. Breastmilk takes care of the nutrition side of things.

If I ever find any of that elusive free time, I would like to do a blog post on how I’m feeding him at this stage in the game. There are also several other posts I’d like to write but just haven’t found the extra time to do it. Or when I do “have” the time, it’s usually 3am. While I am getting better at working at such an hour, sometimes I am just tired and can’t think straight. Ah well. Hopefully I’ll get to all the stuff on my list before he reaches one year.