Yes, it’s true, Max is 7 months old! As all of his xmass visitors will attest, he continues to be an adorable and happy little boy (at least when his Aunt Courtney isn’t “breaking” him – more on this later;) He doesn’t go back to the doctor until he is 9 months, so we don’t have an update on his measurements. (If he gets a second flu shot we should be able to get some updates so stay tuned.) His dad seems to think he isn’t gaining weight fast enough, but mom can definitely tell he is getting heavier (and even dad agrees he is starting to get chubby cheeks). The other kids in his class that are roughly the same age appear to be around the same weight. He has started to eat more “solids” and so far has had: rice cereal, oatmeal, mixed cereal, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, and peaches. His favorite so far seems to be squash; cereal seems to be his least favorite. But no matter what solid he is getting he still puts on his sourpuss face when the bib goes on. In addition to milk, Max has taken to having fruit for breakfast, vegetables for lunch, and cereal for dinner. Since he has started daycare, he is also getting one
formula bottle a day. (Originally this was because he wouldn’t always eat at school when we first started the transition, and if he wasn’t going to eat, mom wasn’t going to pump 
Max does like the highchair he got from his grandma and grandpa for xmass and he can now also sit in them at restaurants. Yesterday mom and dad stopped for lunch at a sandwich place (yes, we were out on a diaper/baby food run to Target) and Max sat in a highchair and had
bites of his sweet potatoes between mom’s bites of her sandwich. This was the first time we really ate as a family!
Max transitioned to daycare by having mom work 2 hour days for two weeks in December. Beginning this year, mom is working 4 hour days. The current schedule is that Max wakes up by 7:30 (sometimes it is as early as 6:30). He then nurses, gets changed, has some fruit, plays
with mom, watches dad shave and dress, plays in the exersaucer while mom prepares both his and her lunches, says goodbye to dad, and plays on the floor with mom. This takes about 2 hours. At that point he is getting sleepy and so he and Mom leave for daycare (which we call
school). Since school is only 2 miles away we can generally get there before he falls asleep.
Once at school Max is happy to take a nap in his crib. Mom signs him in and says goodbye. Max has been sleeping for about an hour. According to his daily report cards, he then has some vegetables and plays with the other kids. He is still a little clingy and his primary caregiver has to make sure to carry him around and put him near her so he can see what is going on. For the first few days she also took him to lunch with her to get him used to the whole thing (she has lunch in the breakroom across the hall from his infant room). But toward the end of the week Max was happy to take another nap and let her have some peace. Mom generally arrives to pick him up shortly after his second nap so sometimes he gets another bottle there and
sometimes he gets it at home (yes, he has progressed to the stage where he will even take a bottle from mom!). In order to enter Max’s classroom, you must either take off your shoes or cover them with surgical booties. Upon entering the room you must wash your hands before you can pick touch any of the kids. The first few days Max would throw a fit when mom didn’t come right over and pick him up. But by the end of the week he just pouted until she had washed up and could come over.
Once at home Mom and Max play for about 2 hours before he is tired again. Since we have been having such good weather (sorry folks on the west coast), Mom and Max have been able to go out for walks in the afternoon. And yes, he is still obsessed with his shadow. Max then
takes a 1.5-2 hour nap. During this time Mom pumps his breastmilk bottle for the next day, exercises and showers! After he wakes up and nurses he gets some cereal and plays with mom while he waits for dad to come home. He then plays with dad while mom makes dinner. Max no
longer sits in the kick and play bouncer while we eat, he plays by himself in his playpen! (More on this later).
After the playpen Max changes into his sleeping clothes (sometimes getting a bath first) and starts to say goodnight. He says goodnight to his dad first and then goes with mom to nurse a final time before hitting the sack.
During this first full week of school he seemed to be getting into a good pattern and since he was actually taking good naps and eating more solids he was starting to sleep through the night! Okay, so sleeping through the night from mom’s perspective really just means that he didn’t have to be nursed 
He would wake up at about 4 hour intervals, but could either put himself back to sleep or just need to have the pacifier. He also had a stuffy nose and the doctor had him
on dimetapp so it isn’t clear whether that was helping him sleep also. Unfortunately last night he had problems again, but hopefully that was the outlier and the sleeping thing was the trend!
So what’s with the playpen you ask? Well Max’s parents are apparently very silly. Mom was reading an article and it mentioned how much time the standard 6 month old should be spending in the playpen (the point being to not put them in for too long). Well Mom said “hmmm, playpen, yes, I guess one does use that for things besides just sleeping when on travel”. So out came the pack n play. We put a few toys in it and Max is perfectly happy to sit there and play by himself while we eat. It is a win-win for everyone! The playpen is set up next to the exersaucer by the kitchen door to the deck, so Max can keep tabs on how his parent’s meal is going and his parent’s can see what he is up to (you know, to make sure he is still alive and the such
Max enjoyed all of his xmass visitors! I think he especially liked being carried around by his grandpop. As everyone who was here knows, he is pretty happy to have visitors now and will let others hold him. But luckily we didn’t have to test this with our pastor when Max suddenly became the backup baby Jesus at the Xmass mass. The pastor came running over before mass and said “if my baby doesn’t show up, can I use yours?” But the “real” baby jesus (who was actually a girl) showed up just before mass and thus Max missed out on his big role (which entailed being carried by the pastor into the mass and a little scene at the end). Max enjoyed all of his presents and has been playing with his blocks ever since. (Yes, the same blocks that entertained him for the full 1+ hour that it took us to open gifts.) He has managed to put the little blocks in the block holder (dad is convinced he taught him this) and Max can also reach in and take the blocks out. He is working on sliding the blocks into the columns on the big block, but is a master at pushing the lever to have all the blocks fall out. Max also likes to “stand” and play with the top of the big block.
Aunts Kath and Courtney came over the following weekend and still no crying! Well, no crying except for when he fooled his Aunt Courtney into thinking he really could stand by himself and she didn’t completely guard against him just toppling over. He was fine and I think it actually was more traumatic for Aunt Courtney (who claimed she broke him) than it was for Max.
Besides eating in the highchair, the other big development is that Max can now wave! We had just been talking with the family down the street (who have the boy roughly Max’s age) about how neither of them were catching on to this whole waving thing. Then yesterday Mom and Max were standing on one side of the room and Dad was on the other.. Dad started to wave to Max AND HE WAVED BACK!!!! He did it a few more times after that and then even waved to a parishioner today at mass (a man who has been making faces with Max most su
ndays).
Still no teeth (the boy down the street is working on #4). This despite the fact that people have been telling us for months that he is teething since he is a big drool machine and is constantly sucking on his hands etc.
The next thing he appears to be working on is crawling. Just today he seems to have more interest in trying to move his legs to propel forward. But he hasn’t actually gotten all of the mechanics down yet as he tries with just one leg at a time so mostly just ends up rolling over. So the only he can still only get “around” by doing the backstroke or rolling from tummy to back etc.
