Ryden 7 Months

Can't believe our little Ry-guy is 7 months old already! I always go into denial when we get past the 1/2 year mark. They grow too quickly! On the other hand, I am thrilled with the developmental changes that occur at this stage... like sleeping through the night! Ha ha! We truly love our little guy. He is so sweet and happy during the day and likes to receive a lot of attention. He loves being with our family... whether is it outside just sitting in the Bumbo watching the kids ride bikes in the driveway, or sitting like a big boy in the highchair at dinner. He knows he belongs to us. He is very aware of everything going on around him. He especially is aware of his Mama and what I am doing and where I am going at all times. He is very much a Mama's boy. He is social and likes to be part of the party at all times. He can't focus on eating or sleeping when there are other things going on. His coordination is amazing and he can pretty much get anywhere he wants by rolling and pivoting across the floor. He got his first two bottom teeth this past month. The first one cut thru on Easter morning and the other one just barely cut. He is a miserable teether, just like his brother was. My boys sure know how to make a fuss about teeth! I even bought a teething necklace in desperation and I think it actually works! We are beginning our 4th month cloth diapering and it is going very well for him. No diaper rash ever and he seems happy in them. I've finally got a system down and have switched all the kids over now. Ryden loves bathtime and loves going outside. He is really content to just sit outdoors and look around for sometimes an hour or more. He LOVES table food. He eats any and every baby food but always wants whatever the big kids or grown-ups are having. He begs for table food. Also, like his brother! And he can eat and eat and eat. He loves to be able to hold food and feed himself. I often give him biter biscuits/cookies, bread, crackers, french fries and other goodies that he can hold himself. He enjoys cold things... popsicles and chips of ice. And he is just dying to try ice cream. Okay... I maybe might have given him a tiny little taste of ice cream at Mc Donald's one time. Just a taste.... (I'm caving with #3 here). But sometimes he will even refuse to breastfeed until I've given him baby food. He is breatfeeding about 4 times a day and eating baby/table food about 3 times a day. He usually has a baby yogurt in the morning, some kind of baby meat and vegetable or fruit at lunch and rice cereal and fruits/veggies at dinner. Or just some of whatever we're eating. Some table food he eats often is bread, beans, banana, rice, cheerios, yogurt melts and various crackers. He is pretty good at gumming just about anything and those two little teeth are coming in handy. He is growing like a weed. Wearing 12 month sized clothing. He weighed 16.5 pounds at an appt he had at 6.5 months. Because of our living situation, he's been in his cradle for far too long and sharing our room. But he is just too big for it so I finally moved him to the pack-n-play in a guest room upstairs at our inlaw's so that he has more space. His basic schedule at this point is waking up around 6-7am to eat and then going back to sleep till about 8 ish. He eats breakfast around 10 and goes down for a nap at 10:30. He wakes at noon and breastfeeds... then plays. Eats lunch around 1:30 or 2 and then heads back down for another nap shortly after. He's usually up by 3:30 and plays for a while. Breastfeeds around 4. Sleeps again around 5:15 till about 6. Wakes up for dinner, playing and bath and then breastfeeds and goes back to sleep around 8pm for the night. However, he has a bad habit of waking around 1am and usually needs to bf again. We are just starting to work on sleeping thru that time. Moving him upstairs away from grown-up noise has helped a ton. Ry loves people and tries to coo and talk a ton. He also does a little fake cough when he's trying to get attention or gets really excited. He also likes to slap his hand on the table at feeding time. He smiles a lot and laughs very easily. He is also snuggly and loveable. His hair is starting to fill in but his head still pretty much looks like a big round ball with a big round face. Handsome little fella though. And he seems super long to me. Turning into a big boy FAST! Too fast for me! Life with a third is just starting to get really good. He's becoming his own little person and we have a routine down. I love having all of my kids together and they are all the best of friends!