7 Months Old

Our baby turned 7 months old today.

There's mostly brown now in Gabriel's eyes. Just a little blue hanging on at the edges. So my hope that Gabriel would have Daddy's beautiful light blue eyes is long gone now. But they are not as dark brown as Mommy's yet.

Gabriel sits like a champ now. Rarely does he topple over. He even sits up in the tub all by himself these days.

He is interested in what is around him and wants to move to explore. Sometimes he becomes frustrated when he's on his stomach and can't get to things. The care givers at The Learning Center have been holding him up by the stomach in a crawling position to try to show him how to crawl. I prefer to not encourage that sort of mobility at home. He seems to be a people watcher too when he's out and about in his stroller. I can only imagine what he's thinking. And the dogs are some of his favorite things to watch. Even better when they pop up in the chair next to him to say hello and give a kiss.

The Learning Center has proved to be a smooth transition. We still need to secure some days of alternative day care before Gabriel is officially permanent full-time starting 10/5/09. But otherwise, all three of his teachers are fantastic. And Gabriel seems excited to be at The Learning Center when I drop him off in the morning. And on Monday when I picked him up, I almost felt like he wasn't happy to see me and to be going home. They do walks and water play, and paint. Yes, paint! They are quite brave with a whole room of infants. And the staff are always doing something creative with the babies like adding color to the pool water or freezing Jell-O for them to check out. And my favorite is the communication. Most days I get an e-mail, often with photos attached. And I get a little written log of what went in my baby, and what came out, when Gabriel slept, and cute comments about his day on it. And at pick up I am also assured to hear cute antidotes of how the day went in the infant room. I don't know where the teachers get all of their patience.

Gabriel shows interest in toys and seems to get that they are for fun and to be explored. Favorites so far are his Taggies football and his V-Tech baby laptop computer. Gabriel likes to close the lid on the laptop, which makes all of the lights and sounds stop, and then we have to open it back up for him so he can do it all over again. And again. And again. And again. Gabriel also seems to like to spin the wheels on vehicles. And of course the doorway jumper and his exerciser are still main stays, but he's so much more active in them now. Any tag on any item is of interest to be touched and checked out.

And most heart warming is that in the past few weeks, Gabriel has started to actually snuggle back. He has always partaken in snuggling, but now he buries his head into the crook of my neck and his little arms are starting to hug back. And he's started to put his arms into the air in anticipation of being picked up.

He makes parenthood fun, so far. It's hard to believe that someday he will be a teenager and he may never speak to us and definitely won't want to be seen in public with us.