Seven Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are seven months old, now!

The seventh month of your life was very exciting and eventful and interesting and all kinds of things that I would like to do justice to with a quality monthly letter. But, if I wait any longer to write this letter, you will be eight months old, and all the new things that I meant to write about will be old news. It's amazing how quickly that happens.

We started this month with a trip to Canada. I could have sworn I wrote about our trip to Canada on my blog, but I don't see the entry there, so I guess it will get paperclipped into the middle of your birthday letter.

You had fun playing with your cousin April (and by "playing with", I mean "being crawled on top of by", but you did have fun!)



We bundled up in warm clothes and went to Winterlude (Ottawa's winter festival).



It was a fantastic trip, even if we did get caught in a nasty snowstorm on the way up and have to stay in a hotel for the night (your first hotel!). We had a nice visit with Grandma, and you got to eat your very first food. You LOVE eating real food. You have become the star attraction at every meal, as you explore new tastes and textures and maneuver things to your mouth with adorable determination.



While we were in Canada, April decided to give you something special to take home with you: her cold. You spent the next week or so completely miserable with a runny nose and a cough. I felt so bad for you. Then, one day, the cold was gone. Then, the next day (February 17, to be precise), I saw a tooth poking up through your bottom gum, on the left. Your Nana was on her way to pick up your PopPop from the airport, and I couldn't wait to show them your new tooth! I nursed you, and apparently there was magic in that milk, because when you were done nursing and I pried open your mouth to show Nana and PopPop your new tooth, there was another tooth poking up right beside it! (Pictures to come later in a "this is what baby teeth look like coming in over time" spread.)

So I guess we should thank April for the cold she gave you, because you seem to have used your body's leftover cold-fighting powers to cut your first teeth. That, or it was never a cold in the first place, it was just teething symptoms. That, or it was just a big coincidence, but how boring is that? Anyhow, long story short, you now have teeth, and I don't let you chew on my fingers anymore, because, man! It can really hurt!

You have become a very talkative baby. In addition to H's, you now say B's, P's, M's, and, most recently, L's. You're not really showing interest in baby signs at all, and I think it's because you are so focused on communicating verbally. You like to talk a lot. I have no idea where you would inherit a trait like that.



You've also become much more exploratory this month. You like to play with your toes, other people's toes, and, most often, other people's faces. You especially like grabbing my nose, trying to poke my eyes out, and holding my lips shut. Apparently, you think I talk too much. You're probably right. Your dad barely gets in a word in edgewise around here as it is, whatever is he going to do when he has both of us to compete with?



I know I have said something to this effect in almost every letter, but you sure are getting big! As of your six-month appointment, you were in the 95th percentile for height. You're too tall for almost all of your pants, but I have solved this problem by just pretending that you're wearing capris. My favorite outfit to put you in is a footed sleeper underneath a pair of overalls. Then, you look like you're wearing "real clothes" but I don't have to deal with socks that a) don't go up high enough to cover the gap under your capris, and b) fall off every 2.3 seconds. Plus, your "socks", "leggings", and "shirt" all match perfectly! That's more than I can say for what I'm wearing today.

You used to always sleep until I came home from work, but you have recently taken to waking up about an hour before I get home, so you can wait for me. When I walk in the door, you'll be sitting there on your daddy's knee, and you will turn around when I say "Hi" and flash me the biggest, brightest smile. Sometimes, you'll even say some variant of "Hi" back to me. When I come over to pick you up, you will reach out for me with your arms, and grab me around my neck, and bury your head in my shoulder. That first snuggle is the highlight of my day, and as exciting as solid food and teeth might be, that is the image I want to keep with me of your seventh month of life. Those eyes full of love, that smile full of joy, and those arms reaching up to communicate everything that you don't have the words for, yet. I love you, too, Valerie.



Love,
Mama.

Fun Things and Not Fun Things

So, Valerie's monthly letter is over a week late, now. I swear, I have some really good excuses this time.

Last weekend was the weekend of Fun Things. Friday night, we went to a Starbucks Grand Opening at my former manager's new store. I got to see a bunch of people I really miss seeing from my old store, and had a really nice time catching up. Saturday morning, we went to an absolutely, insanely huge thrift sale that was actually too big to really dig through properly. I went through the specialty tables, picked up a few little things, then hung out at the babywearing table unofficially demonstrating various carriers. I also found a gauze wrap for $7 to replace my stretchy wrap that Valerie is getting too big for.

Saturday night, I left Valerie with her daddy and her grandparents while I went to a friends' house to pretend I was in college for an evening. We ate take-out and played video games until the late, late hour of 10:30 p.m. Okay, so that part of me is not-so-college anymore, but my limitless attention span for Katamari Damacy remains unchanged.

Sunday, after church, I met up with a local mom at the Wegman's café for soup and a nice, long chat. Sunday night, we had dinner with Jer's grandparents.

Meanwhile, we were all catching colds. By Sunday night, Valerie was coughing like a 70-year-old smoker, with a nose that wouldn't stop running. We weren't about to let a little cold spoil our fun, however, so we went ahead with our plans to go to the Aquarium with my playgroup friends on Monday.

Valerie did really well at the Aquarium. She spent more than half the time happily asleep (in her new wrap!), but when she was awake, she loved looking at the big fish swimming right past our faces. For less than the cost of two visits, we bought an annual pass, so we will totally be going back there again! I forgot my camera in the car, but my friend Jess kindly took some pictures of us, which I hope she doesn't mind me posting one of them.



Monday night was our game night, which has moved from Wednesdays to accommodate work schedules, board meetings, and LOST. We hammered out our new story arc, which is full of political intrigue and could end in war. Fun stuff.

On Tuesday, I was finally concerned enough about Valerie's cough (and the horrible, hairbally throat noises that were now accompanying it) to call her pediatrician. He told me what I expected he would, that there is really nothing to worry about unless she's throwing up or running a fever. But at least I could stop feeling guilty every time I heard her sad, pathetic coughs.

On Wednesday morning, I wasn't feeling very well at work. I had some stomach cramps, but mostly, I was just feeling really worn down. Valerie wasn't sleeping at night, and she seems to have already learned that misery loves company. I called around to see if I could get someone to cover my Thursday shift. I wasn't feeling terribly sick, but I felt like I might get sick unless I took a day off. Unfortunately, no one was available to work for me, so I dragged my weary bones out of bed before the crack of dawn on Thursday. Before the first customer arrived, I discovered the cause of my stomach cramps. Without going in to further detail, I seem to have contracted the worst gastrointestinal virus I have ever had. Three of the babies from the Aquarium trip have it, too, as do three of their parents/caregivers. So, I'm guessing we picked it up at the Aquarium. Maybe we shouldn't have played the "lick a sick fish" game? I left work as soon as I could get a replacement in, and did not work Friday. I have been obsessively drinking water to avoid dehydration. I seem to be on the mend, now, and actually ate breakfast this morning. Now, I'm just completely exhausted, devoid of all energy, and back to dealing with obnoxious cold symptoms. Jeremy and Valerie both still have the cold, but have so far managed to avoid the GI virus. I'm praying they don't catch it. It's no fun. Besides, they're miserable enough with just the cold.

Anyhow, that's the long and the short of the fun and the not fun we have had this week. I realize, now, that in the time I wrote this, I could have written Valerie's monthly letter. Oh well. Hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

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Baby-Led Weaning

As Valerie's six-month birthday approached, I did a lot of reading on the subject of introducing solid foods. It was rather an overwhelming undertaking. There are about as many different approaches to feeding as there are different babies. Oddly enough, the more I read, the less overwhelmed I became. It all seemed to blur together into one great, big, educated guess. There are advantages to every theory, but in the end, it all seems to pretty much work. Once the pressure of finding the "perfect" method was off, I relaxed, and stumbled upon a theory that just "clicked".

I always hesitate to discuss my parenting choices on my blog, because the Internet is full of people who don't know how to disagree peacefully. So, before I tell you which feeding method we have chosen and why, I want to let you know that I don't think the method you have chosen is wrong, I don't think you are messing your kids up for life, and I don't think you are a bad parent for choosing to feed your child according to conventional guidelines. Really.

Okay, so here it is: We let Valerie eat real food. We let her feed it to herself. We avoid major allergens and choking hazards and chemical-laden processed foods, but otherwise, we just let her eat normal food, cooked to gummable softness and cut into spears for easy handling. The method is called Baby-Led Weaning, but I like to think of it as "What our great-great-grandmothers did before there were handheld food mills or Gerber". There are a lot of developmental and nutritional advantages to this method, and if you're interested, you can read up on it here or here or here. I'm not here to convince anyone, though. This was all just an elaborate preamble to an adorable video of Valerie eating broccoli.

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