Jake~7 Months

Our little buddy is now in that super adorable baby stage and is so interactive and fun!  Our months are starting to run together in my head, so it's hard to remember what's new and what's old (especially since I'm very late with this post again...), but one thing is for sure, I am so in love with this little guy!  He takes cuteness to a new level.  And sweetness.  Have I ever mentioned how sweet he is?! ;)

He is sitting on his own better and although he still tilts himself over, he can sit for longer periods of time before that happens!  We're practicing though!  He isn't army crawling yet, but he wiggles and rolls to where he wants to be pretty well.  He love his exercauser and would hang out in that thing all day if I let him.  He "talks" to it, bounces, lays his head back and rests, spins, plays, you name it.  I'm glad he likes it because Cooper didn't.  It's nice to get our money out of it now!

He's started making that adorable funny face that babies about this age make.  He squishes up his face and breathes hard (almost a snort).  I love it!  He loves to make his funny face for Karl, and Karl encourages it by doing it to him every time he sees him.  It's just one of the little ways he is becoming more and more interactive and fun.  He calls for Sadie by yelling, grunts for others to pay attention to him, laughs and squeals constantly at Cooper, and babbles to me when he's eating.  He likes to have his family close by for sure, and while he's still hesitant with people he's not familiar with, he warms up fairly quickly.  He's not outgoing, but he is social.

As much as I love the older baby stage, I'm not a fan of the baby food stage.  It was not fun with Cooper and also led to him weaning.  It has not been fun with Jake either, but for a totally different reason.  He doesn't like it either, and he prefers his milk for sure.  And then there's the whole break-out-in-hives thing. I'm going to make a llllloooonnnggg story short, and just say that after having an "allergic reaction" to carrots by getting red welts on his arms on Easter, he got worse welts, which some might describe as hives, after eating peas (which is the only food I absolutely will NOT eat and think is terrible,  and now with good reason :)) on a Friday evening, which happened to be the night before I was supposed to go out of town for my best friend's baby shower.  We called the on-call nurse to see how much Benadryl would be appropriate for him to have in case the "hives" got worse.  FYI-Don't say that h word to a nurse over the phone or she might make you go to the Children's Hospital After-Hours Clinic.  I overreact to everything when it comes to my children, but even I knew this wasn't that big of a deal.  Clearly he was having a reaction to the peas, obviously I wouldn't be giving him peas after that for awhile, and more than likely I was going to take him to the doctor on Monday to discuss this welt/hive reaction he was having to his food.  Well, we got sent on a Friday night at 9:00 to the clinic with all kinds of sick kids.  And low and and behold, it was just a reaction to the baby food, and after two long hours, I finally was told how much Benadryl he could have should it get worse.  Which it did not.  And I didn't even end up giving him any Benadryl.  Sigh.  It was exhausting.  The next day I talked to the pediatrician's office, and they said to hold off on everything he's had a reaction to and not to give him anything new for a month.  For whatever reason, he just wasn't ready for real food yet.  After continuing to get eczema-like spots on his arms and legs despite not having any new baby food for a couple weeks, I took him back to the doctor, and he said it could be heat related (which is what I was thinking), and that I could slowly start re-introducing new foods.  Thank goodness, we have not had any more hives!  He doesn't love his baby food and gets upset after a little while because he really just wants to nurse, but we're making progress.  He has baby food for lunch and dinner, but just milk in the mornings.  By the time he's done nursing and has played, he wants a nap, so I haven't pushed getting him to eat anything then.  As far as napping goes, he takes a morning and afternoon nap, and probably a late-afternoon nap 70% of the time.  It's short and sweet if he does take it, but some days he needs it to get through dinner and to bedtime.

Overall, this was a big month for our little guy.  He had his first Easter, first trip (and hopefully last trip) to Children's Hospital After-Hours Clinic, first beach trip, and we had our first Mother's Day together.  It was a busy month, and our little buddy just makes every single thing in our lives better than it ever was.

We are so thankful for this sweet baby!