Sam At 7 Months

A snapshot of Sam at 7 months (well, plus a bit)...


Oh come on, how cute is that?!?

• In the last month he has become much more pleasant! I suspect that he just plain wasn't getting enough to eat before, and now he is (a post for another time, perhaps). It's like night and day. He is much more smiley and laughs more often, and the long crying jags in the middle of the day are pretty much over.

Smiley Sam! He really does exist!

• He is also finally starting to gain some weight! At 6 months he had barely doubled his weight, making him borderline failure-to-thrive (see "not getting enough to eat", above). But now he is happily packing on the pounds and getting chubbier by the day! He is finally graduating out of his 3-6 month clothes.
  
• This kid sooo wants to be moving! He loves to be on his feet, and will "walk" if you hold him upright (I don't remember Amanda doing this until quite a bit later, but I could be mistaken). He will also pull himself upright if we put him somewhere he can do it, like in his crib next to the bars. He isn't yet crawling, but he sits totally unassisted for long periods of time and has learned that he can "bounce" himself forward. He can make pretty good tracks this way! In the last couple of days he has also figured out how to do continuous rolls and has been rolling around the living room floor. Oh oh!!
  

Sitting up in his favourite spot in the living room, with his toys.

• He loves food! He has already graduated to eating 3 times each day, and at every meal he eats about 3 tbsp of cereal, give or take, plus at least one frozen cube of something else. So far he's tried cereal (rice, barley, and oatmeal), fruit (banana, peach, and avocado), veggies (carrots, butternut squash, yams, broccoli), and meat (roast beef, tilapia, and turkey). He's not a huge fan of anything the first several tries, and has a lovely classic "yuck" face that he makes, but after awhile he'll eat most things on their own. Still not a fan of any kind of meat, though.
• He adores books. I remember Amanda always liking books, and she's even an early reader, but I'd say Sam loves them even more at this age. He has already figured out how to turn pages...not every time, but if he persists he manages to do it. He babbles away to the book and makes all kinds of interesting noises!
• Speaking of speaking, he started out babbling several months ago, but now seems to have moved onto strange guttural noises like hard g's and weird little huffs. I don't remember Amanda doing this...will be interesting to see what comes of it!
  

Chattering away, as usual.

• His sleeping is pretty terrible. Considering he started out so promisingly in the sleep department, we thought he'd continue in the same way, but no. Around the time he started solids he also started waking up consistently in the middle of the night (usually around 1–2 am, but anywhere from 11:30 pm to 4:30 am) and flat-out refusing to go back to sleep on his own. He will quite happily sleep if someone stands next to his crib touching him, or if he's held in a chair or on the couch, or if he comes to bed with us. But otherwise, no way, no how. For various reasons we decided not to deal with this over the past month, and since we'll be in Disneyland next week, there didn't seem to be a point in doing anything until we get back. Hopefully we'll be able to get him back into some kind of regular sleep pattern soon. On the plus side, he's dropped his nighttime feedings, so it's just a matter of dealing with the clinginess issue!
  
• He surprisingly looks quite a bit like me as a baby. I wouldn't have noticed it, but my mom pulled out an old photo of me at 3 months and the resemblance is pretty striking. I will have to borrow that photo and scan it in next time I'm over at their house!
• We have been signing with him for a few months – just simple signs like "diaper change", and now that he's eating, "more" and "all done" He already seems to be trying to sign! In the past couple of days he brings his hands together in front of him in a rough approximation of "more" while he's eating. It will be fun to see if he picks it up in the next while!
  
• Still nothing on the tooth front, although he is sooo drooly and his teeth obviously bother him quite a bit.

Lovely drooly baby.

• Things Sam loves: having his back scratched (he crunches up his shoulders and just melts); being tickled; This Little Piggy; the bath (he really, really loves the bath and gets super-excited every time we put him in it!!); spending time with Amanda (his face literally lights up when she is around, and she continues to be amazing with him); looking at pictures of babies (we found a great book called Baby! Baby! that he is crazy about); a lovely pink plastic comb that he seeks out above all other toys.

Of all the toys he has to play with, he picks the plastic comb??

• Hmm, what else? He has a very funny little giggle – almost more like a chuckle. He's still a little shy around anyone other than me, Jeff, or Amanda, but he's getting better at being with other people and has been successfully babysat (i.e., little or no crying) for a few hours at a time. We are loving getting to know him and discovering his personality as it emerges!

Our beautiful boy!