7 months

Caiden, at 7 months you are:

• Sleeping through the night. Yes, I can confidently say that you are sleeping 11-12 hours per night without interruptions. This has been a blessing for the most part, except when you decide that a 5:45 or 6am wake up is necessary and we don't go to bed till 11pm. Usually you are more of a 7am riser, so let's try to stick with that! Thank you!
• 2 naps a day keeps your attitude at bay! You love your morning nap, usually between 2-3 hours long around 10am. Your afternoon nap has much to be desired. Sometimes it's 1.5 hours but usually it's 30-45 minutes.
• You are eating 2 meals a day for the most part. Sometimes we've skipped the morning meal if we are out of the house and you really don't seem to mind. You really don't seem convinced that you need to eat real food yet. The only meal you were positive you enjoyed was that entire jar of pears you finished off one evening. [Which was a mistake because I think you had a belly ache that night because you did not sleep well.] You eat two tablespoons of rice cereal at breakfast and dinner and at dinner we try to give you something else as well. We try different stuff every few days but the pears have been the only thing you really open your mouth for. Everything else is kind of a game to see if we can actually land it in your mouth the two seconds you have it open to laugh or talk.
• We are pretty sure you have a crush on Mary. That would be Mary from Mary Had a Little Lamb. Marc first showed you a video of the nursery rhyme on YouTube a few months ago. Well now you really know Mary and when you hear the song you start pumping your feet and panting with excitement. Once you see the video it doesn't stop until it's over. You go buck wild! We always know it's the one thing that will cheer you up when you're in a bad mood.
• You love to sleep with your dog blanket. It's definitely your comfort buddy at bed time. No matter how much you move in your crib it is always by your side. I swear, I put you down on your back in one corner of the crib and within an hour you are on your belly in the opposite corner...still with your dog blanket in your hand. I have a feeling that thing is going to be around for a few more years.
• You are officially "on a roll". Literally rolling everywhere in our living room. In the matter of minutes when I put you down on your back you have rolled to your stomach and on to your back to get something. 
• You are on the verge of crawling I'm almost sure of it. I could be a bit premature by saying this, but I'm sure by your 8 month blog post I'll be telling everyone you are crawling. You get up on your arms so high and kick, kick, kick, I really feel like one day you are just going to take off.

Your dog blanket is never out of reach...

You put EVERYTHING in your mouth...

This is a very common look on your face...

I found you way over here after looking away for a minute...

Big boy hat...

Prunes

We tried prunes for the first time earlier this week and this is the reaction we got.

Back to Reality

Marc had a four day weekend because he took last Friday off since his mom was in town and also had Monday off for Presidents Day. This morning when Caiden woke up at 6am I was not ready to begin the day. I had gotten used to handing him over to Fery and crawling back in to bed for an hour or two, which happened every day last week. We had a pretty relaxing week with Fery. She cooked a bunch of food that we were able to freeze, went to SeaWorld, had eventful breakfast outings and a Baptism party for Landon. All in all a great week and can't wait till she comes back out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We didn't get any pictures of Mr. Caiden in a Valentine's outfit yesterday :( But Marc and I were able to go out to dinner last night thanks to Fery! We went to this great place neither of us had been to called the Wine Vault and Bistro. A prefix food menu with wine pairings with each course.

[Thank god Marc's mom is here this morning, too.]

Allergic to Melons

We had a little freak out yesterday. Marc's mom and I went out to breakfast and had some extra fruit on our plate so we were letting Caiden taste the honeydew melon just by rubbing it on his lips and gums. About 15 minutes later when we got home and I was taking him out of his car seat I noticed his bottom lip was starting to swell up. I started kind of freaking out wondering what he was allergic to and hoping everything else didn't start swelling as well. Over the course of 15 minutes his upper lip started swelling too! He was breathing normally and his tongue wasn't swelling so that was good. I tried calling my pediatricians nurse hotline and I was on hold for about 10 minutes waiting for the next available nurse. I was so freaking annoyed and mad. So Fery called her cousin in Virginia who is a pediatrician and she said to give him some baby antihistamine and just make sure he is breathing. Luckily we have antihistamine around for him because of his skin eczema. She said that melons are a common allergy and that eventually they grow out of it. I was also reading on the internet that a melon allergy usually leads to an adult allergy of ragweed. This poor kid has such sensitive skin and is allergic to so much stuff. We are going to have to really be careful giving him new foods. You always read in all the books how you only introduce one new food every 3 or 4 days, I guess we'll have to take that seriously. So anyway, he went down for a nap right after we gave him the antihistamine and when he woke up 2 hours later the swelling was gone. We were checking on him every 10 minutes during his nap like crazy people.

Here is one picture I took when just his bottom lip was swelling up. I didn't take one when the top lip was swollen.

Sleeping through the night

Yes, I said it and I'm probably going to kick myself but it needed to be documented. He's been going down around 7pm and sleeping all the way until 7am. This has been going on for 6 straight nights! I couldn't be happier and literally waking up a different person. The first morning I woke up and Marc said, "jeez, you have a lot of energy right now." And anyone who knows me knows I'm NOT a morning person. But when you wake up at 7am after sleeping for 6-7 straight hours and walk into his room and look at him and he has this HUGE smile on his face and says, "mama", you can't help but be a happy person!

First "real" food

Lot's of first's this week! We used the Beaba Babycook that Anne let me borrow to make some sweet potatoes for Caiden last night. He didn't really love them or hate them, typical Caiden reaction ;) I saved some in the fridge to give him more over the next few days so we'll see if he gets use to them. And I had enough to freeze a small portion for next week. The Babycook was pretty easy to use, it steams and purees all in a one stop shop in about 20 minutes. Once he starts eating larger portions I'll definitely make a lot of his food with it.

First Mum-Mum

We gave Caiden his first finger type food last night. He loved it! The combination of him being able to gnaw on it using his two little teeth and the fact that it was food made it a success.


**I really hope I don't jinx myself here. But he slept from 6:30pm to 6:30am last night...I think I'll give him a mum-mum every night!