7 months

today talan turned 7 months old. last month was quite the busy month for him with many firsts including laying in a pile of leaves and standing inside a pumpkin for mommy's crazy photo ops. talan continues to be a happy, fun baby however, nite time has changed. for the past month and a half he has been waking up anywhere from 2-3 times every nite. pretty much every 3-4 hours. i took him in for his 6 month check up to find out he had an ear infection. so i blamed his restlessness on that. he was put on medication and was seen by the dr. 2 weeks later and we were told the ear infection was gone. once again, he wasn't able to get his flu shot because he was congested. ok. so he has a bad cold and is having a hard time breathing. that's why he's still waking up. well. the congestion is gone and the kid is still up several times a nite. it's possibly a tooth thing but it's also possible he's gotten used to the half asleep feedings and doesn't want to give them up. in any case, this better end soon cuz we're dyin' over here. he didn't do this when he was a month old.
he has moved his way through all of the vegetables that gerber has to offer and we are about ready to start him on either meats or fruits. possibly meat so that we save the sweet stuff for last. hayden ate the fruits after veggies and he still had no problem eating the nasty canned meat. years later he eats all of 4 things. so we're just trying to decide what might give us a better eater than our first. he's enjoying his food much more than before and it's not nearly the chore it used to be to feed him. he typically eats a jar at lunch and a jar at dinner. and happily. he still gets distracted easily and if hayden is in the room it's next to impossible to get talan to eat. or the cat. talan just loves that cat. this afternoon i was feeding him lunch and we were almost done when dante walked in. and that was it. talan was fixed on dante and wouldn't budge his head or open his mouth to finish the jar. dante finally left and talan finished up his lunch. i think mealtimes i'll start taking talan into a private room with a lock on it so he doesn't get distracted.
on thursday, november 1st we were watching hayden at his bowling league and i asked jessica to check and see if she felt any teeth in talan's mouth. i thought i might have seen a couple of bumps, but is it ever hard to get a kid to open their mouth and let you examine it. she felt and looked in and we discovered that his two front bottom teeth were starting to pop up. i can't believe it. a kid that got 2 teeth before 7 months! he's been shoving stuff in the back of his mouth as well so i'm wondering if there is something coming in back there as well.
just this week talan has more or less mastered the art of sitting. on monday he sat for a good amount of time on his own and each day after he has sat for long and longer stretches of time. today he was sitting in the living room on his own for well over 10 minutes. if he's too tired he'll just gently fall to the side or straight back, but i believe at this point i can say that talan is sitting by himself.
talan, like hayden, is still just fine with strangers and with me leaving him. he's never had one bit of worry when i've handed him over to someone and just walked out. i'm hoping for a good santa picture this year. i got the best one when hayden was just about a year. after year after that it's been downhill. we've talked a lot about it and we're now using the big brother card telling him he needs to show talan how to do it. so we'll see. talan may just have his picture taken alone with santa.
he still isn't crawling but he moves himself around in a circle anytime he needs to. he can roll across the floor to get him places or just somehow scoot himself there. either way, he usually gets to where he wants to be.
the only positive sleep thing we have to report on is that we've given up the nite time swaddling. we have put him to bed every nite this week without being swaddled and it really hasn't been too much different than getting him to sleep while swaddled. i still tend to swaddle him at naptime because it just seems a little different with it being light and all. he tends to fall right to sleep at naptimes so i kinda don't want to mess with that right now. so i'll wait a little bit longer. maybe he can get into some record books for being the oldest baby that has to be swaddled to go to sleep. he's usually gotten himself out of it by the time you go in to get him, but it's the fact that he has to be in it when you put him down. but at this point we're almost to a swaddle free baby.
while in for his 6 month check up we were sent home with a nebulizer to help with his 80 year old smokers cough that he's had since he was born. and it actually seems to have worked. at first i just noticed that the cough seemed looser. now, there have been full days where i've only heard him cough once...maybe not even at all. so hopefully that is passing.
talan claps and waves. he loves when you say "mama." he'll just sit there and stare at your mouth while you say it. he has excellent motor skills, says my dad, and i agree. he will take the string of a balloon and just grab at it with his fingers and then just play with it. he was putting shapes inside his shape sorter, moving them around with his hand in order to make noise, pull a couple out, bang them together and then put them back in. he still loves being in his jumper and will immediately stop fussing when put in there. he's even fallen asleep in it more than once. i took him to target yesterday and couldn't believe what a difference i felt with him and hayden. talan was awake the entire time and didn't even have a binky in his mouth, yet he was quite almost the whole time. with hayden i would freak out if he would wake up. i'd grab what i had to and run out of the store before the screaming began. i think i still do that with him. but yesterday was so pleasant just getting a little bit of christmas shopping done with talan.
so once again, another great month, except for the sleep thing. something he really must work on cuz we just can't keep living like this. i'll have to try some teething medications and see if that works. if not, there's always soundproofing the room like i always swore i'd do.
happy 7 months, talan!