Yesterday, Cody turned seven months old. He’s officially “over the hump” for his first year—how crazy is that?
This month, Cody has started learning how to give “kisses.” He leans his face toward mine and bumps into me, often with his mouth open. It’s super cute! He also gives kisses to Cory, of course, because he loves his daddy very much. He’s even started to get excited when Cory comes home from work. When he hears the garage door opening and sees the dogs run to the door and bark, he smiles and starts kicking his legs excitedly, and when Cory comes in he reaches for him. I love to see this, because like most babies, he has been very attached to his momma from birth and it makes me happy to see him bonding so closely with Cory as well.
His interactions with us are becoming more mature and adorable every day. He vocalizes back and forth with us, recognizes his name and the words “daddy” and “mommy” (and variations), and likes to snuggle and be close to us. He loves being kissed, which is probably why he’s starting to try to kiss us back. He’s so much fun and brings us so much joy every day!
Of course, he’s also still a very challenging baby, and he has some behaviors that we don’t particularly enjoy. He excels at hurting us, whether it’s head-butting us in the lip with his huge 99th-percentile head, pulling and ripping out our hair, smacking us in the face, kicking us in the groin, punching me in his sleep, or as it just so happened while I was writing this post, swiping me in the eye and knocking out my contact lens in the process. He’s even jammed his finger up both of our noses! Cody is a strangely violent baby. Hopefully he’ll grow out of it with time.
Cody’s favorite activity is walking around the house with us holding his hands for balance. He has his first pair of real shoes now, which we put on when he’s walking downstairs (where the floor doesn’t stay very clean) or outside. He also has a little push walker that he can use with help, although he prefers to hold our hands. He is able to pull himself up from sitting, and he likes to climb all over us when we’re sitting with him in our lap or lying in bed.
As for progress toward crawling, things are moving slowly. He doesn’t like to be on his tummy, or his back for that matter, for very long. I usually make him spend some time on his tummy every day anyway, but it’s not much because he starts to cry after a while. I think that he’s physically capable of crawling at this point, if he could only figure it out. He can sometimes get his knees under him, and he can rock back and forth on his hands and knees. He can also pull himself around in a full circle on his belly. Unfortunately, he hasn’t figured out how to move forward at all yet. But he’ll get it eventually!
So far, he still doesn’t show much interest in solid foods. Mostly, he just enjoys playing with the spoon. He also still has not learned how to drink from a bottle, and though he has a sippy cup for water, he doesn’t know how to use that yet either. So basically, all of his nourishment still comes from me, which is perfectly fine. 🙂
Cody’s sleep habits are predictably unpredictable. He still takes his naps in his swing, and he takes anywhere from one to three naps per day, ranging from half an hour to two hours or more. Usually, the cumulative total of his naps is somewhere around 3 hours per day, but it can vary significantly. His most predictable nap is now his midday nap, around 1 PM, but he skips it sometimes if he has a morning nap, especially a long one. His bedtime ranges from 6:30 PM to 9:30, most often falling around 8:00. He almost always wakes up around the time that Cory wakes up for work, which is 6:30 AM.
He still wakes up often at night, and sometimes won’t nurse back to sleep. When that happens, we’ll either give him some homeopathic calming or teething medicine, put him in his swing, or both. He usually has one diaper change in the middle of the night to prevent leaking, and another change first thing in the morning. Between nursing, changing, giving medicine, and carrying him back and forth from the bed to the swing, Cory and I end up waking up quite a few times each night. Most of the time, we can do what needs to be done and get back to sleep quickly, but it can take its toll on a really bad night. Fortunately, he sometimes has really good nights that feel heavenly. Last night, for instance, he slept like an angel and it was wonderful. Cory and I are hoping that it’s a new trend—perhaps teething is the cause of his nighttime restlessness, and his discomfort is finally easing? We can hope, at least.
Speaking of teething, he now has his two front bottom teeth and it looks like two front top teeth are coming next. He is still very bothered by teething, and we can tell when he’s particularly uncomfortable because he’ll suddenly start crying and screeching and clutching at his gums, and then be fine again in a few minutes. Poor guy! 🙁 We do what we can, whether that’s giving him homeopathic teething medicine, a cold teething toy, or if it’s really bad, infant ibuprofen. And of course we hold him and comfort him, and I offer to nurse him. Sometimes nursing helps, but other times he goes without nursing for much longer stretches these days—known as a nursing strike—most likely because of the discomfort in his gums.
Whether it’s because I’m adjusting to having a high-need baby or because he’s becoming easier to handle, I feel that things are getting easier these days. I’m still enjoying my wonderful job as a stay-at-home mom, and life is good. God continues to bless us so much, and I am incredibly thankful.
