seventh mesaversary

Yup. Seven months.

Seeing as there is no longer a baby scale at my weekly exposure, nor is there another doctors appointment for two more months, there are no baby stats to share. (Though I did drop him on Jenny's scale just to see, and he rang in at 22 lbs.)

It's been an exciting month for the lad. He interacted with a dog for the first time, rode in taxis and busses and trains, went on his first road trip, met his great-grandma, grandpa, uncles, aunt and cousins for the first time, and received his blessing at church. (All of which should get their own post some day soon!)

Tiny Ted continues to be a sweet tempered, content little man. He will sit on the floor and entertain himself for quite some time. We're lucky he doesn't move around at will. He's made some efforts to crawl, but can't seem to get those chubby legs under his big old belly. Getting that belly off the ground seems to take all of his energy! If he wants something bad enough he can gracefully (and sometimes not so gracefully) make his way from seated to belly. He has started banging things on the floor, on the table, on any surface he can find, and occasionally he'll even bang things together in his hands. Those chubby arms are powerful. I've started working on waving bye-bye and clapping with him. While he kind of, sometimes does bye-bye, he really gets a kick out of me clapping.

His current favored toys are his stacking wooden blocks. He's entertained by them for long stretches at a time. He loves ribbons and strings and tags on anything, especially his giraffe. He was particularly enamored with the box that stores toys at grandma's house. And loves any non-toy item he can get his hands on and into his mouth. (Mr. Yin's iTouch is currently sitting in a bucket of rice in the hopes it's not been rendered useless thanks to a visit to said mouth.)

In the past couple of week's he's gotten more excited about eating solid foods. Thus far he's had sweet potatoes, avocado, bananas, pears, blueberries, watermelon, peaches and yogurt. He eats more each time we feed him, so we're getting there. He doesn't lunge after foods like other babies his age and sometimes I think he'd be content breastfeeding for the rest of his life. He certainly isn't lacking in his caloric intake. I guess that's what we get with a fat, content baby!

Around the end of June two teeth popped through his bottom gum! Without much fuss or drool, I might add. For the few nights before it happened, he'd go to sleep for the night and wake up twice at hour intervals before finally going down for the night. That was totally uncharacteristic, but I thought he had gas. Turns out he was teething! During the day he'd put his hands together and move them up and down towards his chin. We thought he was being extra grateful and saying "gong shi, gong shi". But now in retrospect, I think he was dealing with discomfort.

He is an absolute joy of a little guy. He's so content and happy. We feel so lucky to have such a good baby. We'd love him no matter what, but it sure is nice!