7 Months Old!

That's right, the 19th of Feb means that little Max is 7 months old today.

We think he is quite smart for a 7-month-old, and his weight, height and teeth place him up the top in the physical development area as well. Max's latest achievements include giving enthusiastic high-fives, which he likes to do repeatedly and accompanies with big proud grins, and clapping his hands. He doesn't always clap on cue yet, but often does it independently when there is music playing and just because he feels like it. He is getting better at both of these by the day.

He is also slowly progressing towards crawling. Since he is so good at sitting up, this is the position he feels most confident in. So if he is on the floor sitting and wants a toy just out of reach, he will lean forward onto his hands as if to crawl, but still is hesitant to take his legs out of a sitting position to get both knees onto the floor, because once he does this he can't easily sit back down again. He often looks as if he is about to take off and crawl, but then gets a bit scared and decides its safer to just sit down, and then clap his hands. He is getting closer by the day though, so I'm expecting him to figure it out before he reaches the 8 month milestone. Lets see how that prediction goes!

Standing up has always been a good way to cheer up a grumpy Max, and this is still the case. These days he doesn't feel the need to hold on with both hands for support, which leaves him one hand free to grab at all of the new things within reach while standing. He loves to investigate everything on our coffee table, especially the box of tissues, which fascinates him. He is very good at pulling out tissues. He is also using the furniture to pull himself up more and more, but is quite unsteady so I really need to watch him in case he loses his balance.

Max is also progressing well into the adventure of eating solid food. On the weekends I cook and puree a variety of fruit, vegetables and some meat, and store it in the freezer in ice cube trays. Max has 4 of these cubes of fruit for breakfast with some baby cereal mixed in, 3 cubes of mixed vegetables for lunch, and 3 cubes of meat (either chicken or beef) and mixed vegetables for dinner. Although he loves to get his fingers in the container and mush the food around his high chair tray, he also usually loves to eat it and it doesn't take long before the container is empty.

One other fantastic achievement for me is that Max now regularly sleeps through the night, from 7pm until about 6am. It's so nice to be able to rely on getting a good solid night's sleep again, and means that Max is quite happy to be awake for about 3 hours in the morning until he goes back to bed for another nap.

Happy 7-month birthday Max, and congrats on all of your achievements!