Seven Months!!!

A couple days late, my loves, because as you know- we're living in a war zone and the viral enemy is by far winning at this juncture.  Alas, I'm proud to say we got a photo shoot in at all this month!

Just like every month thus far in your lives, I sit here scratching my head, wondering how the calendar could be right.  You can't be seven months old already!  That's over the hump- we're downhill to the big "One" now and I can't wrap my mind around it.

But as I watch you both grow into the amazing little people that you are, I know that while it's going too fast, it's all too real.  Such a beautiful whirlwind!

Grace Face, my little Who!

Yes, I said it.  You, my dear, are our little Who...ya know, like from Whoville. You had all of those cute Who features as a newborn and I loved to trace the swoop of your nose with my finger as you sleepily passed the day in that newborn phase.  And then as you started to grow,  your little nose kept that swoop and I got to see your little Who personality start to shine as well.  Now, in your seventh month,  you're no less Who...and maybe even moreso than those early days!! And I couldn't love it more.

The best thing about this month has been your ever increasing smiles!  You wrinkle that brilliant little nose, glance in our directions, and shine the brightest little wrinkled smile there ever was.  You're incredibly active and oh-so-curious, so you seem to be always looking for the next thing to spark that smile.  I love it.

Your adorable hair has grown a bit longer this month, but still in every direction but down!  You look so cute with your spikey hair and your beautiful blue eyes!

This month you had your first solid foods!! It's been a lot more fun than I anticipated feeding both you and your brother.  While you have been a bit shy about trying most of the food, you've started to take to it a little more just recently and you seem to even like some of it!  So far you've had rice cereal, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and bananas!  Your favorite is by far the bananas...sweet tooth, much? The rest of it all started with more of a curious but disinterested sentiment on your behalf.  You're warming up to it, we'll see what happens next month! 



You're still eating predominantly formula, taking right now about six ounces four times per day and seven ounces twice per day. Usually you eat less than that, though.  You get rice cereal in the morning usually at daycare and we usually (when we have time) give you some pureed vegetables in the evening before bedtime. We'll be starting more fruits this month!  I'm not making your food, which I'm not too surprised about (I had hoped...but life is just way too busy right now), but you're getting mostly organic jar food.

You've been going through a growth spurt recently, but you haven't really grown much at all little lady! You're still a very petite little girl, weighing probably just over 16 pounds. You're wearing 6 month clothes and don't seem to be needing anything else anytime soon.  The funny thing about all of it is that your feet are as big as your brother's!!  I wonder if you're going to go through some sort of crazy growth spurt at some point and shock us all.  For now, I'm happy with my tiny little princess. 

A new favorite pass-time for you is sucking on your bottom lip.  You'll sit up (you're so good at sitting now!) and rock back and forth a bit like you're dancing, then start sucking on your lower lip to the same beat as you're rocking! It gets me every time!!!

We've had a great time exploring this month.  You want to get your hands on anything that I'll let close enough to your grip, like your spoon! You want to feed yourself most of the time, which means food ends up everywhere but your mouth. 

You really love the paper towel dispenser in the kitchen.  If I'm holding you as I walk anywhere near it, you reach out for it, demanding I take you closer. At which point, you proceed to try and rip all of the paper towels off and get the top silver piece in your mouth!

I don't think this is going to be a temporary thing for you, my curious little one.  I think you're going to be our explorer, always ready to get your hands on the next new thing! With that said,  you still have your shy streak, and you take a little while to warm up to most people before you've decided whether you'll keep your tears to yourself.  But once you've warmed up,  you're such a happy girl! And you love to play, especially in your jumper!  You've figured out how to really bounce in it and you go to town bouncing up and down to high, it's the greatest! You get really happy when you're bouncing. You are absolutely our mover and shaker, little miss.  You're actually a bit ahead of your developmental milestones when it comes to motor skills, although your brother seems to have more of the verbal tendencies at this point.

We haven't gone swimming this month at all, but we've had plenty of other adventures.  My favorite was my first Mother's Day!  You and your brother got me cards and a beautiful necklace, and Daddy let me know it was your idea to take me out to brunch.  I love showing you two off, and everyone just adores you. How could they not?

Gracie, I've had so much fun watching you grow this month.  While I was very sad to see you with your first cold and ear infection from daycare, you've been so happy through it all.  I can always count on a beautiful smile when I pick you up from daycare or anytime I come to grab you off of your playmat.  You love to be held and I absolutely love holding you.  I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have you, my love.  You're the best little girl out there, and I can't believe you're mine.  I love you with all of my heart!


Mr. Caleb, my big man!

Oh buddy, another rough month for the health side of things is in the books...but another amazing month full of smiles and lots of laughs came right along with it! How you manage to stay so happy through all of the junk you've been through is beyond me.  I'm so proud of you every single day!

You've had your tough days where I knew you had to be feeling just horrible. If I can't get a smile out of you in the morning,  I know you feel bad. You're always so smiley, especially in the mornings! Recently, anytime you see Daddy you're beyond thrilled about it and make sure he knows.  You even let out your one-syllable chuckle just when he looks at you.  But when he tickles you, you can't hold in that adorable belly laugh!!

As much as I hate to write it out, I want to remember how tough you are with all of the different bugs you've been dealing with!  Just after you turned six months old,  you started having some pretty bad diarrhea.  Your sister got it too, but she was throwing up and you never did.  Hers went away in about two days, so we figured the same with you.  Three weeks later, you were still having diarrhea.  You got a horrible diaper rash because you were just pooing all the time and sometimes at night when you wouldn't wake up. We tried everything and eventually had you on a four-cream regimen that included diaper changes every two hours at night and hourly during the day.  All of these diaper changes were with a spray bottle and air drying, so needless to say, Mommy got pooped and peed on quite a bit!  Then came the blood in your stool. This was so alarming to me so we called the doctor but they said if it isn't recurring, it's ok. Two days later you woke up with pink eye in both eyes and more blood in your stool.  I took you in and sure enough you also had double ear infections! I could not have felt more horrible for you.  You were in such a sad state, I've never seen you so worn out and down. We got you on antibiotics and were told to keep an eye on the blood.  A few days later I brought you back to the doctor because the blood was occurring more frequently and you were refusing your bottles. That was the first time they sent us to the hospital.  They were concerned about a problem with your intestines because of the prolonged diarrhea and the particularly alarming consistency of it.  You had to do x-rays and ultrasounds and way too much blood work.  I was there with you the whole time and you sat in my lap as they put in your IV and did the ultrasounds. You were so mad and I felt so helpless watching you scream. Luckily the IV perked you up a bit and all of the tests came back negative.  Unfortunately, a couple days later you still weren't eating and then you got a really bad cough that kept you up all night so it was back to the doctor.  They sent us back to the hospital, this time to be admitted overnight, because you were having trouble breathing and the doctor was concerned about dehydration again.

I spent the night with you in the hospital, rocking you and trying to make you feel better in any way I knew how.  They tried four times to get an IV into your tiny veins but couldn't do it and I asked them to stop.  You were miserable, and it had taken 30 minutes of you screaming non-stop as they continued to poke you and wiggle the IV line to try and get your vein.  I had gotten you to eat just before that so I asked to keep trying the bottle instead.  Thank goodness you started eating again, I couldn't see you go through that anymore.  The nurses were grateful as well, they were at a loss for what to do for you when the third nurse couldn't get the IV in as well.  You turned out to not need any breathing treatments other than some steroids as most of you congestion was up in your nose and throat and not in your chest.  After one night in the hospital they sent us home with instructions to continue the antibiotics for another week.  Turned out you had croup on top of everything else.  Poor, poor little man.

I tried to explain to all of the nurses just how happy you usually are, none of them had seen my bright eyed little bubba! About ten minutes before they discharged us, I was playing with you in the hospital crib and I got a great big smile out of you.  A nurse walked in just a couple minutes later and I made her stop to watch you and she was blown away by your handsome smile!  Your cheeks are the things of dreams, little man.  I just want to chew on them they're so chubby and cute!  Everyone commented on how big you were and a couple of the staff thought you were already over a year old! 

I have been in complete denial about how big you're getting. I'm still trying to fit you into 9 month size pajamas!  You're already starting to outgrow a few of the 12 month outfits that I finally bought for you, so I probably need to change out your pj's as well!  You're eating six ounces four times per day and eight ounces twice per day.    You LOVE solids and will gobble down your share and usually your sister's leftovers as well.  The only time you've struggled to eat is when you're really, really sick, otherwise you're my hungry little man.  You still have a little bit of that thrusting reflex I think, so a lot of the food ends up on your chin, but we get it in there eventually.

You still wake up at 4am for food, but recently you've been waking up a whole lot at night with how sick you've been. I don't feel comfortable letting you cry in your crib, so whoever is on baby duty for the night usually ends up taking you out into the living room and sleeping with you on the couch on and off until morning.  We've given you your binky back a lot recently with the hospital visits and the very sad little man moments.  It's been hard not just giving it back to you at night, but the couple of times that I have you just end up crying for it every thirty minutes or so, you can't seem to figure out how to keep it in your mouth or putting it back once it's fallen out. 

Developmentally you're pretty on track.  You're our talker where your sister is the mover.  You still haven't been able to sit up on your own besides a few seconds of tripod'ing here and there.  You're not really all about standing either, although I can get you to do it for a little while if you're in the mood. But oh how you love to roll over from your back to your tummy.  You've taken to sleeping on your side a lot now, but sometimes you'll sleep on your tummy. A lot of the time once you get there, you just get mad about it and want help rolling back to your back. I know you can do it, but I guess you choose not to! :)  You've also achieved one major milestone first, you got your first two teeth! They're fully in now and they're so cute. Your smile has taken on a whole new shine with those two bottom teeth sticking out.  But man, those things are sharp!

You absolutely love to babble! You have this high squeaky voice when you get excited and you make the cutest oooh aaah eeeeeh weeeeh aaaah sounds! I haven't heard you do many consonants other than the occasional W or B, but I love it all!

I'm so enamored by your sweet little personality and your happy go lucky ways, little man.  I have so much fun watching you grow and change, getting more bubbly as the days pass.  I couldn't be more proud of you or feel more lucky to have you as my little boy.  I love you so very, very much!





Luckies, I want to freeze these beautiful moments with you!  I never want to see you sick, so as long as we're out of those dark days, I am loving every single minute of this time with you.  I hope you know how much you both mean to me and how incredibly in awe of you I am.  Thank you for making my life so bright.  You fill me with unbelievable amounts of joy, my little ones.  I love you both more than you'll ever know!