Dear Levi,
You are seven months old! Such a big boy! You look older, too. I love how your hair swoops across your forehead, and it appears as though your eyebrows are getting darker. Every three days or so I have to trim your nails (or “razor claws,” as daddy calls them) because they grow ridiculously fast.
From a developmental perspective, this past month was major. You started eating solid food and have loved nearly every spoonful of pureed fruits and vegetables we’ve fed you. Except for avocados. You weren’t crazy about them. And you seemed repulsed by the taste of ranch dressing, one of the condiments the pediatrician suggest we try to help you gain some weight. Instead, we’ve been melting a sliver of butter into your food twice a day. Since your diet has changed, so has your poop! Your daddy and I never know what we are going to find in your size 2 diaper, but whatever color or consistency it turns out to be, it always stinks.
On January 22nd you sat up unassisted for the first time. I think I may always remember that date; what a huge milestone! Now you can sit in a restaurant high chair rather than being strapped into your car seat. This month you also mastered your jumperoo and get a kick bouncing in it for an extended period of time. I love watching your little feet go up and down as if you are doing an Irish jig. You aren’t crawling yet, but I imagine you will be soon, as you have started pushing your tummy higher and higher off the ground, which sometimes causes you to slide backwards on our wood floor.
Sophie the Giraffe is one of your most beloved toys, and your new noisy trick is making clicking noises with your tongue. We can get you to laugh by making those same silly sounds back at you. Speaking of noise, you are one loud kiddo! You enjoy practicing your consonants at full volume, the best sound being “ma ma ma ma ma,” of course. Eventually, you’ll be addressing me when you say that!
You now sit upright in the toddler half of your blue plastic bathtub and kick and reach for floating bath toys. Naturally, they all go straight into your mouth! Since you like the water so much, we started taking swim lessons at the JCC, and you’ve even let me dunk you three times! We also go to music class as a family once a week, and although you are the youngest of the group, we think you enjoy the songs as much as the bigger kids.
But perhaps my favorite thing that you’ve started to do this month is look for and grab pacifiers to self-soothe when you are trying to fall asleep in your crib. Once, as I watched on the baby monitor, I was convinced you were going to start crawling because the pacifier you wanted was just slightly out of reach!
This month’s stats: You eat approximately 5-6 times a day. I nurse you around 3-4am and again between 7-7:30am. For lunch your nanny feeds you solid food and gives you a 3oz bottle, and in the afternoon you get a 7-8oz bottle. Daddy or I give you dinner, and I nurse you again before bed between 7-8pm. You go down easy at night but still aren’t crazy about napping. Your morning nap starts between 8-9am and (ideally) lasts until 10-11am. Your afternoon nap tends to be the shortest; sometimes you only sleep for 45 minutes around 2pm, which means you need a third mini-nap in the early evening. Your 3-6 month clothing is starting to get a little bit too short on you, but you aren’t quite wide enough to fill out your 6-9 month wardrobe yet. Maybe we need to buy you a baby-sized belt to help keep your pants up!
Stay silly and happy, baby guy!
xoxo
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I’ll be photographing Levi on the 12th of every month to document his growth this first year. He’ll be wearing a numbered white onesie corresponding to his age in months, sitting in a chair next to his blabla doll for continuity. See all of Levi’s monthly photos here.
{photo taken on Levi’s 7 month birthday, 02/12/12}
