Jackson at Seven Months

Oh, dear. My poor little boy. For the last two months, his month birthday has fallen both on a holiday and in the midst of craziness, and here I am again, VERY belatedly posting about his seventh month here on earth with us. Nothing special is going on next week (yes, he will turn eight months next week—I am not sure how that is possible, but it is true), so I’m going to do my best to post this month’s news on time.

As for the seventh month, it was full of all kinds of excitement. It started with Jackson’s first Thanksgiving and ended with his first Christmas Eve, with lots of action and adventure in between. He started babbling like crazy, mostly with “bah bah bahs” and began trying to pull up on things (although he hasn’t made a ton of progress there—if he has two fingers to grasp, he can pull himself up to standing, but he’s still a little intimidated to try pulling up on anything else). He started army crawling, which he did only very slowly at first but picked up a little steam over the month. His top two teeth came in (much to my chagrin—teeth on top and bottom have changed breastfeeding forever—OUCH) and he tried solid food for the first time. His first food, like his big sister’s was avocado. He gave the typical “what is this you are trying to put in my mouth?” face, but he took to eating from the spoon almost immediately, never thrusting any of the food back out. This is probably because he was almost three weeks past his six-month birthday before we started the solid foods, thanks to his GI issues. After avocados came sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and pears, all big hits. It has been so strange for me getting back into the swing of making all the baby food. It’s been a long time.

As for adventures, we spent a beautiful afternoon at Mount Vernon during the last weekend in November. The following week was Hudson’s birthday, so we spent some time at the Arboretum that day and took Jackson with us to drop off our gifts to the hospital and the animal shelter. Jackson’s Poppy came into town for Hudson’s birthday, and that weekend, we took Jackson to Zoo Lights at the National Zoo. Not really for the younger set, but I do think he enjoyed all the lights and musical displays. The next day, we went out to Butler’s Orchard to cut down our Christmas tree, and the wonderful Emily Large came with us and took Jackson’s 6-month photos there. You will see below how amazing they are. And then, of course, Jackson met Santa for the first time, a big moment for every kid, even if he doesn’t know it.

He continues to look so much like his big sister when she was this age, both of them still so round and chubby, not moving enough yet to start turning leaner and losing that baby fat, heads disproportionately bigger than their bodies. He’s quite a bit more, er, assertive (as Jessica diplomatically put it) than she was at this age, though. He is pretty bossy about letting you know when he’s not happy with his current situation. But as he continues to develop cognitively, he is learning to spend more and more time entertaining himself without any help from me, which is so neat to watch. He is exploring all the household goodies that are so much more interesting than toys—stainless steel bowls, wire whisks, giant serving spoons, soda bottles full of water. Who wants a toy that plays music when you can play with what the grown-ups have?

It really is hard to believe he’s getting ready to turn eight months old. Where did the time go? I have been thinking a lot lately about how very soon, he will be half as old as Hudson ever got. And then, one day in the not too distant future, he will be older than she ever was. Even though I am glad I did not know what was coming with Hudson, there is part of me that thinks about those milestones with Jackson. I can hardly imagine that he could be gone in just a little more than ten months from now. Obviously, I can’t and won’t live that way, but even the slightest breeze of that thought makes me grab this little boy up and close my eyes and squeeze him tight.

Lots and lots of pictures. Even if the time is slipping away, I will always have these pictures.