The Seventh Month

Seven months! This was really a mixed bag.

I am writing part of this as you watch Italian for Babies. We watch it every single day and you are so funny because you laugh in the same parts every day - when the video shows the a boy waving flags and the voice over says "Bambino!" and when the video shows a little baby having a shirt put on, which is funny to me since you cry every time I put a shirt on you. No matter. You seem to really like the show (thank God for On Demand) and it gives me exactly 13 minutes to unload and load the dishwasher, get a cup of coffee and eat a quick breakfast because amazingly you stay put and watch the whole thing every time. The rest of the day you are on the go constantly, or rather you are wishing you could be on the go. You scootch around on your belly and are now getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth trying to put two and two together and figure out this whole crawling thing. I think it's a few weeks away but we've really got to start baby proofing this house. We are so not prepared.

This was a big month for you as you now have two teeth, the growing of which has clearly not been any fun for you and not much fun for us either. But your bottom two teeth have broken through and they are very very sharp. You like to scrape your teeth along the edge of a really old remote we discovered for you thereby nullifying all of the work we do to make sure your toys are chemical free. Your favorite toys these days are a tupperware cup, the lids to your food jars and those remotes. I try to remember this when I am tempted to buy you some adorable handcrafted new toy on Etsy.

A few weeks ago we started going to The Little Gym to the Little Bugs gym class for babies ages 4 months to 10 months. I wasn't sure how you would like it but you love it. You love jumping and flipping backwards, you sit back and just watch all of the other babies sometimes tentatively reaching out to say hello to one of them. 

You are developing a personality slowly but surely and sometimes I am not sure I love all of it. You definitely have a will of your own and so many meals become a battle of who was going to put the spoon in your mouth, me or you trying to guide the spoon in. When I won't let you hold the spoon for fear of you jabbing it into the back of your throat you then show off your stunning vocal chords and scream. Loudly. A lot.

But meals are funny too. Sometimes you just lay your head down and start sucking on the tray of your high chair, which always makes me laugh because you always lower your head very slowly as if you are weary of the whole meal ordeal. One day after a particularly trying battle of wills you laid your head down and I just started to laugh because it was the only thing I could do. You picked your head up and looked at me and something seemed to click into that little baby brain and you seemed to get that you were making me laugh and you laughed hesitantly and put your head down again. I laughed harder. You looked up and smiled, this time a little wider and put your head down again and I just cracked up. You looked up again and this time joined in and soon we were laughing together, which was sweet and wonderful. I feel like I spend so much time trying to entertain you, coax a smile when you are sad, making you laugh when you are tired and this time you were making me laugh. It was wonderful and a small moment to hold onto in a tough month for us. 

You do so many other things that drive me crazy like pinching me when you are excited, something I feel terrible about faulting you for but it hurts. And you are terrible at just drinking your bottle that it makes me want to tear out my hair when you push the bottle away for the 20th time during a feeding. And you still have an ear piercing, mind numbing, blood pressure spike inducing scream that makes me want to shove hot needles in my eyes. 

I have to be honest being a parent is so much harder than I ever imagined and you are, on balance, a pretty good kid.  I read so many mommy blogs that paint this rosy picture of motherhood and I wonder if they ever have a bad day. Are they really that much more patient than I am? And then I think about you reading this someday and I hope you never think that your dad and I ever went through a day without loving you. You challenge us in so many ways and have forced us to change our lives in every way possible and this has been hard for us but even on the hardest days, on the days when I don't think I can take it another minute, I can look at your sweet face, into your huge blue eyes, watch you joyfully flip over on your stomach and break into laughter when you see Buddy and fall in love all over again. And again. And again.