So you think you can stand?

Donovan just turned 7 months old.  Time flies, I tell you!  I know, broken record over here!

He had his 6 month appointment recently.  Yeah, a month behind.  We had it scheduled, we had to move it, and the back to school rush coupled with our desire for an afternoon appointment did not make it easy to find a new time.  But little man is 75% for height and weight, and 90% or so for head circumference.  My big boy!

We have graduated to a convertible car seat (and Jocelyn has moved to a harnessed booster in my car!).  Which is sort of inconvenient because it was easy to put him into the carrier while we were still inside somewhere, and keep him in there while dropping Jocelyn in her room at day care.  Since he can't stand, and wants to crawl and move and squirm when put to sitting, I can't just set him down somewhere.  But it's part of the process.  He is 28 inches tall, so it was time. 

He's super awesome at sitting now.  He can put himself up to sitting from lying on his tummy.  He hasn't gone from lying on his back to sitting up yet.  Also, at some point he learned how to roll over front to back.  He doesn't do it often, but he can.

We have had a rough few weeks, though.  Poor Donovan had some rough fever / teething / gas stuff.  I suspect that the teething caused the gas and contributed to the fever, but it spiked at about 102 a few times, so it was likely a virus too.  Poor day care babies. But his bottom two teeth are in!  They are super cute.  Sure, I love a good toothless baby smile, but the bottom two is also pretty dang adorable.  The only problem is that he does tend to nibble once he is done nursing, and that is no good!

We have spent the past few days working on crawling and walking.  Crawling is his solo activity.  He works on that during his active, solitary play.  He usually starts off in sitting as his 'home' position, and then launches himself forward onto all fours.  Toys are a great motivator - he likes to have things to reach out and grab.  He can inch worm forward a bit, and he can creep on his belly, and he can also balance himself on his hands and knees.  I think that crawling is around the corner.  He almost has all of the parts down.

He would probably be crawling if he wasn't also working so hard on standing and walking.  Yup, my big boy wants to WALK!  He pulls up on our hands really well now.  He's been working on that for a while, but now it's no big thing.  He doesn't need us to pull him up, he just pulls himself up. He can walk if we are holding his hands.  And by walk, I mean one foot in front of the other, can get half way across the living room before his legs give out.  He's doing great.  He is starting to be able to pull up on objects - the bouncy seat worked well for him because he could sort of 'climb' up the side with his hands. The coffee table / wicker crate is still hard for him to pull up on.  But once he is up, he will often walk to it and hold on to it.  He is even starting to cruise a little bit - but it's more of a crossed feet, one step and trip sort of deal.

It's funny how our attitude stuff with him is so dramatically different than it was for Jocelyn.  Part of it is their personalities - Jocelyn demanded a whole lot from us (she still does) where Donovan is more laid back.  Part of it is definitely birth order.  We figured out what is important with her and what is not.  So we are applying it here.  We are less likely to run to his rescue when he is figuring out a task or practicing a skill.  If he is in danger, that's different.  But if he's fine and just working on something, we will let it get to tears and give him a chance to work through the tears (which he usually does).  We didn't do that much for Jocelyn - if she cried we usually responded.  But then, she wasn't exactly a work through the tears sort of gal.  Once Jocelyn hits melt-down stage, it's all over :-P.

He is enjoying being worn in the Baby  Bjorn these days.  I don't do it often, but it works out well when he is sleepy and wants to rest his face on my chest.  It used to be that he was the wrong size for just about every carrier - he was SO big, so he couldn't fit with his legs all curled up (like newborns like to).  And having his legs stretched down was not comfortable.  But now that's he is bigger, he is more comfortable with his legs stretched out.  So he seems to like it.  Score! 

Donovan is still a champ when it comes to food.  He loves his veggies - likes my homemade carrots, zucchini and green beans.  He's not the biggest fruit fan.  He likes some - like blueberries - a lot.  But he could do without peaches.  And pears he is still unsure of.  He likes prunes just fine.  I need to try apples again.  Oh, and he love banana!  He also did well with jarred butternut squash. 

The biggest news is that he has appeared to have outgrown his dairy sensitivities!  Since he turned 7 months old, I wanted to try again.  I was going to give him a bit of yogurt, but then the timing worked out that I was going to a CPG networking event at a dairy company, and they were hosting an ice cream party, so I figured I would go the mommy consumption route of testing instead.  So far, so good!  No increase in gassiness.  There is some increase in burps after he nurses, but they are just burps.  They don't seem to come with any pain or discomfort. 

Oh, before I forget, he is working really hard on his sounds, too.  He had been doing bbbbb and ppphbbttt for a while now.  But now he's working on WA, YA and BA.  It's pretty awesome.  He also still finds everything really funny - especially his sister :-)