The Cutters: 7 Months!

This last month has been a rather big one for out littlest guy! He has discovered so many things!- If you'll remember, last month I reported that Alex had learned to sit up! Apparently, 6 months is early for a baby to be sitting up so well by himself. Everytime I take him into the pediatrician's office (we've spent a lot of time there lately, someone in our house has been sick for the last 2 months) they guess his age around 8 months! Of course if doesn't help that he's so FAT!!!!! Anyway, once he mastered sitting, it wasn't long before he began to put has hands down and pull himself onto his hands and knees. He usually rocked there for a minute and then ended up on his belly. As the weeks have gone on, he is becoming better at maneuvering himself around in this position. He hasn't quite figured out how to move his knees forward, but he is only days away from crawling - I can feel it!! Despite the fact that he has not quite figured out how to crawl, he is very good at scooting himself across a room. Just yesterday I put him on the floor next to me as I was checking my emails. He babbled away for awhile and I didn't realize that he had moved away from me. When I went looking for him, I found him sitting right on the edge of the stairs!! We almost had our first tumble.

- We started baby food this last month too! Joel has been anxious to feed him food so that he has a course of action when I'm not here and there's no milk! I have to admit it would be nice not to have to pump so much! Well, much to our dismay, Alex is not a big fan of food. Judging my the pudge on this boy, you'd think he'd love it, but alas he is a boy who loves milk .... exclusively! Anyway, so we tried feeding him a couple of days in a row and after recieving disastrous results on all occasions we decided to take a little break from the food. We tried again a couple of weeks later with apples instead of cereal and received slightly better results, but still not good enough to have us going through the process daily. Just this week we have tried yet again and we are seeing some improvements! Mostly he is happy to eat a few real bites if we are willing to turn the eating process into a game! There's lots of funny voices and distorted faces and food all over us and the baby, but if it'll help him get used to the idea of eating then we're willing to do it! Also, we have been using the Bumbo seat as a high chair and, not only do we have to push Alex's fat legs in and pry them out, but he has a very large range of motion in this seat. We are planning to get the high chair out of storage as soon as the temperatures go above freezing!

Alex also likes the occasional teething biscuit!

- Another great, yet surprising accomplishment this month has been pulling himself up to standing. If your reaction to this statement is anything like mine was, you are thinking, "WHAT?? He isn't even crawling yet, how can he be standing???" And yet, it is true! One day I was loading the laundry basket with clothes and I had put him onto the floor next to the laundry basket so that I could have both of my hands to work. I turned around after loading the basket and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that he had pulled himself up and was standing next to the basket! I ran for the camera, but, of course, by the time I returned he was sitting contentedly next to the basket again. He has done it several times since then. He has become pretty good at pulling up on the laundry basket, in his crib, and just this morning he pulled himself up on his exersaucer. I'm really praying that he'll crawl for awhile before the walking begins! First of all, he's my last baby and I'd kind of like to enjoy the baby phase. Second of all, I'm not yet prepared to handle that kind of mobility!

- Along the same lines as the sitting and the almost-crawling, Alex has learned to get himelf from sitting to crawling to belly and back to sitting. He's so cute when he's trying to scoot his little fanny up onto the floor!
- Besides all the mobility accomplishments this month, we've discovered some character traits too. Our other two kids were very stubborn! I thought Isabel took the cake on the stubbornness and then I met Gabe! One thing I'm learning about Alex is that he doesn't seem to be stubborn. THANK GOODNESS!!!! He does, however, have quite the temper! There is much screaming and arching to be seen when he doesn't like something, and he goes from zero to hero in the blink of an eye. So, while I'm thrilled about not having another child to battle wills with, I'm a little nervous about this temper business.

This is Alex's favorite perch! He holds onto Joel's hair! He gets so comfortable up there that he'll lay his head down on Joel's head and suck on his fists. Joel's hair is usually filled with drool when he's done. He also likes to suck on Joel's ear. It totally freaks Joel out!!!!!!