Seven Months with Alvie Bean

Dear Baby Bean –

Today you are seven months old! Each month I am so surprised that so much time has already passed. You are developing more and more of a personality each day, and it’s so fun to watch you develop. You are so very determined to do everything yourself, and you get frustrated when you can’t do things. But – you don’t let it get you down for long!

You are still the most cheerful baby that could possibly exist – I don’t know how we got so lucky. Even when you were feeling a bit sickly, you still managed to eke out a few smiles. You are becoming more and more mobile every day. You can scoot so fast!It’s really quite amazing. You’re so curious about everything. Dead leaves, carpet fuzz, socks, power cords (probably power chords as well). You love making noise, and when we were at your friend Ben’s house, you loved his little xylophone and other musical toys. I know what someone’s getting for the holidays!

 

You love mommy and daddy and light up when you see us. Every time you hold your arms out to me, I melt a little on the inside. Who knew I would be so gooey? You also love being outside, touching the grass, watching the leaves, shoving anything you can get your hands on in your mouth.

You also love the kitties – waaaaay more than they love you. You want to pet them, and hug them, and chew on their tails. Jasmin avoids you completely. Lola tries to avoid you, but her desire to sit on daddy’s lap often wins out over her desire to stay away from you. Darwin will tolerate you nomming on him for a short period of time, although he always looks at me with a long-suffering gaze, to let me know I should really appreciate his sacrifice. We are working your petting skills, as currently they more resemble grabbing and pulling.

We’ve had so many more food adventures this month. Your favorite foods are prunes and rice (for breakfast), bananas, peas, and sweet potatoes. You haaaate carrots (which makes me sad), think that pears and avocados are kinda meh, and rejected turkey quite violently.

You want to feed yourself, but unfortunately, your success rate with getting the right end of the spoon in the right spot in your head is pretty low right now.

You can sign “milk” and “more” and the other day waved bye-bye (while yelling BUH! which I choose to interpret as an attempt to also SAY bye-bye). You still don’t say mama, which makes your mama a little sad, even though I know that you haven’t assigned dada to your actual daddy, since you say dada to everyone. I’m still convinced that your first on-purpose meaningful word might be Kitty.

You’re working pretty hard on the next big physical developments. You can now go from sitting to hands and knees, and you’re usually pretty cautious about that. You don’t fall over from sitting any more – or so I thought. Of course, then on Tuesday, you did fall over – total faceplant. And today you have a tiny shiner. I feel pretty bad about that, but I’m sure it won’t be the last time you hurt yourself.

We had a great time at Halloween – I love that holiday and loved dressing you up. You were not as impressed, although you were so cute it didn’t even matter.

cutest dragon ever

Unfortunately, you weren’t feeling so hot, and neither was daddy. The next day, daddy went to the doctor and we found out he had pneumonia. He was so sick! Mama didn’t get much sleep for a few days because she was taking care of her two favorite guys. You rallied pretty quickly, but daddy did not. He had to wear a mask around you for a few days, and you weren’t sure how you felt about that. He looked funny and sounded funny, and you were a little nervous.

Fortunately, everyone is feeling much better right now.

You are getting so big and strong and adventurous. You’re trying to crawl and pull yourself up to standing (and are about 10 seconds away from success). We are baby-proofing like crazy to keep you safe.

Oh, little guy. Mama has had such a hard, hard time these last few months. Postpartum depression and anxiety coupled with the SADs and a recurrence of previous issues is no walk in the park. I am so glad I didn’t know this would happen ahead of time, because you are worth it.

I love you Alvie Bean.

Love,

Mama

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