Dear Tyler, you're 7 months old!

Dear Tyler,

You're 7 months old! Do you know something?  I think you're so beautiful.  You're a cute beautiful baby boy.  I love to hold you on my lap while you bounce and dig your toes into my tummy or thighs then spring-retract them up so you can do it again.  

 Yes I took you to see the Easter Bunny.  It's your 1st Easter and I started a tradition when I took Dylan!  I took Dylan and Isaac to this same bunny for their first years.  They were tiny babies though.  I actually missed taking you to sit on the mall Santa's lap, so I'll have to do it next year to give a photo to give to your Great Grandma Rebeck for her tree.

You crack yourself up sometimes.
You started doing really well at nights and would go to bed without crying.  You still liked to nurse to sleep, but would go to bed in your bed and stay in there from sometime between 7 and 10pm until 5:30.  But recently, you fight sleeping again, don't really want to nurse, take a bottle, be rocked, etc, and don't fall to sleep 'til after 10pm, then you wake up before 5:30.  It's sorta exhausting for your daddy and me.

 You got up on all fours, then the next day you rocked and rocked, then on your 7 month birthday, you took a reach AND knee - so you crawled!  Daddy and I both saw it.  You were going for a toy towards our coffee table and we watched you do the push up, get on all fours, and go before splatting.  So exciting!

(Yes Dylan is dunking his head in the pool behind you - he was hot.)

Now you can rock and scoot and get up and splat down at your leisure.  You even go from your tummy up to a side plank.  Where you are almost back to sitting up buy you're still tipped over on your hand. You've never seemed to mind tummy time.  Oh, and you pulled yourself up to a standing position on our couch on your 7 month birthday too!  That surprised Dylan and me both.  He said "Look, Tyler is doing what Ivy can do!"

 You sleep on your back, but sometimes I put you down on your side and you'll stay.  But if you start to wiggle, you make it back to your back. You like your feet up on your blankets or on me.
We took your bumper out of your crib because I loved watching you sleep through the rungs. For a couple of weeks, you would be found smushed into those wood slats or would be caught with a limb in there.  You've been good lately though.

 You mostly nurse for nutrition.  I give you simple table scraps and some of my green smoothie I've been making lately.  You still don't like bananas. I feel so guilty about giving you some of our oranges in one of those mesh bag holder thingies.  I didn't clean up the drips well enough that rested above your bib on your collar bone area.  So not only did you have some red skin in your diaper area, it burned your skin above your bib!  I cleared it up with hydrocortizone liquid from your pediatrician.  We'll wait for that. You lunge towards my cup of water and can cough back drink some.  I'm going to buy you a sippy cup tomorrow. (I did buy you two kinds of cups and you love the water!)
When you nurse, your hands are busy.  You don't want to hold anything specific, nor do you want to hold anything for long.  You're not wiggly other than your top hand though, that's good.

You're really wiggly and busy in general.  You usually like me to be near you.  Sometimes only I will do.  You are so sweet and I love it when you get tired and just want me and fall asleep in the sling when we're out, or when you fall asleep on Daddy when we're out.  I love to kiss you.  I like you.
Love, Mommy