Austin: 7 months

Austin,

Your 7th month of life had two major themes: eating and sleeping.  I'll compare it to the old saying about the month of March, this month came "in like and lion, out like a lamb."

At the end of last month you were pretty sick and not sleeping very well.  After you got over your croup/RSV/ear infection, we had hoped to get back to sleep training.  You, my son, had other ideas.  No matter what we tried, you fought it.  Finally, after an appointment with your pediatrician, we let you cry it out.  As in, put you to sleep at 6:30PM and left you in your crib until 6:30AM.  We were very nervous, but you did pretty well and kept doing better until 3 days later you slept through the night.  YOU ACTUALLY SLEPT ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! It. Was. AWESOME.  You, amazingly, repeated your new trick for the next few nights.*

So, after many months, and many, many sleepless nights, we've all gotten a little bit of real sleep. 

You're other theme for the month was food.  Last month you'd gotten a pretty good handle on rice cereal, and were really enjoying it.  I was quite excited to try fruits and veggies.  I even made a whole bunch of squash and sweet potato baby food myself (closely supervised by your big sister).  I thought for sure you'd take to food right away.  WRONG.  See for yourself:

Thinking you were just not a veggie fan, I tried pears.  Your face was pretty much the same.  So, I tried mixing a few bites of pears into your beloved rice cereal.  Success!  I've since tried this trick with the rest of the food choices, and you LOVE it.  You're now gobbling down two meals a day, of whatever I give you.  You're not a huge fan of bananas, but you are quite excited for everything else.  Meal time has become a lot of fun.

Though it was a big part, this month hasn't been all sleep and food.  There's been the usual smiles, laughter and banging of toys.  Oh, and there's this:

Maybe I'll be talking about your crawling next month? Regardless, I'm loving every minute of you.

Love,
Mommy

PS- Still blue.  As we spend more time outdoors, I'm curious to see if your skin matches those eyes.  I've been really careful about sunscreen, hats and shade.  If you do have my skin, I know how quickly you'll burn.

*You did relapse a little last night, but I'm hoping it's just a little blip.  A growth spurt maybe?