A Letter to Zach - Month 7

Dear Zach,
On Monday you turned 7 months old and you weighed 23lbs 13oz and were 29.5 inches long...
Oh my these weeks are speeding by. We've had a very busy summer and I can hardly believe that pretty soon I'm going to have to start thinking about a costume for your for Halloween!
At the beginning of last month we started trying out some solids. I watched you very carefully for a few weeks up to that point and felt that you were ready. You didn't exactly go for it with the gusto I envisioned you would. After all, you've been such a good eater to say the least. But I'm sure eating solids and drinking breastmilk are two very different experiences for you, so I'm patient and don't put much pressure on you. We started you on rice cereal which you seemed very interested in. And when I say 'interested' I don't mean excited, jumping-up-and-down-with- anticipation interested. It's more like hmmmmmm-this-is-different interested. You would roll the cereal around in your mouth and sometimes swallow it and other times push it out onto your chin. Then we moved on to bananas - something I was sure you would love. And while you seemed more into the banana than you were the cereal, you still seemed a bit UNDERwhelmed shall we say. Avocado had slightly the same reception. And then we tried the sweet potato. Holy cow do you ever like sweet potato. After one bite you were hooked - every time the spoon came your way you would open your little mouth and lean forward against the restraints of your highchair. Each bite you swallowed as quickly as it entered your mouth. You can't get enough of the stuff! By day 2 of the SP as soon as you saw the spoon you leaned forward, mouth agape, and reached out with not just your arms but your legs too! Each spoon full was received in much the same manor until we ran out of the stuff!
So I'd have to say we're off to a good start on the solids front.
On the teething front...
More teeth started coming in last month. The two neighbors of your upper front teeth started poking their heads out of nowhere. You certainly do keep teething to yourself these days. The drooling and gnawing hasn't even been that excessive - yet you seem to be growing teeth like mad. In addition to those two teeth, you started cutting your two front uppers near the end of the month - so you're pushing out 4 teeth all at once! And it seems as though you could care less. Which pleases me to no end - it gives me great pleasure knowing you're happing and comfortable.
And the fact you're not keeping me up at all hours is great too.
Saves on the liquor bill.
This month was full of visitors to say the least. Grandma came out from Colorado for a long visit and we saw her at the beginning of her trip before she headed up north to visit your Uncle Dana. We saw her again right before she flew home which was nice. Even though our visits are short, I'm glad we've gotten to see her a few times now since you've been born.
Aunt Nisa and Uncle John stopped in for an unexpected impromptu visit - this was your first time meeting them and we had a nice quick visit. And then later in the month Uncle Dana stopped by while he was in town. You had a great time with him, finding him particularly hilarious (as most people do), especially when he rubbed your feet on his 5 o'clock shadow. And in true Dana fashion he taught you how to make smacking noises with your lips.
I'm sure next time he'll teach you how to make farting noises in the crook of your arm.
Near the end of the month your dad and I took a day off from working on the bathroom and went with Grandma Carola to the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the De Young in San Francisco. I was super excited to go check it out as I have been a big fan for years, but it was also fun because it was your first trip into San Francisco.
Which I'm a bit ashamed to admit come to think of it.
We live across the bridge from the damn city and it took us nearly 7 months to take you over there??
Anyway.
It hadn't occurred to me prior, but during the exhibit I kept thinking what a great thing to take you to! You're not mobile yet, so you couldn't run around threatening to knock all the glass over...and consequently giving me a heart attack every 5 seconds. So you just sat in your carrier, leaned against my chest and looked out at all the beautiful colors and textures. You didn't nap until we were done - and boy were you tired. So glad I could share something like that with you.
All the love and kisses possible,
Mama

A Letter to Zach - Month 6

Dear Zach,
I'm ashamed to admit that I am 3 weeks overdue with writing your 5 month newsletter. And it took me getting sick and confining myself to bed to do it.
But that's the way it's been for us lately - busy busy busy.
When you turned 6 months you weighed 23 pounds and were 29 inches long. I took you in for your 6 month check up and when the doctor was done the nurse came in and gave you a shot - and for the first time you didn't cry. I couldn't believe how brave you were! There were tears in your eyes, and you looked at me for support - but you didn't cry. You let out a little sigh and the redness in you face went away and then you saw me smile at you and you smiled back as if to say 'well that sucked, but I'm over it now.'
This month has been full of house related projects - which is probably the biggest reason why my blogging has gone from hardly at all to NOT at all. As mentioned last month we started our bathroom remodel upstairs. So far so good - in fact we're probably going to be ready to install our new tub on Saturday! I'm especially looking forward to that mainly because once that's in I can leave you and your dad alone while I go and take a long deep soak. I haven't had a bath in forEVER - the idea sounds particularly appealing as I lie here trying to ignore my aching muscles thanks to this stupid cold I've got. Well, in part due to that, and in part due to the aching muscle spasm that has taken up permanent residence in my lower back - a side effect I suspect is due to lugging around a rather large infant. I take it all in stride though - I take great pride in your healthy rolls of pudge - and I let the aches and pains remind me that I just need to do back strengthening excersizes while I'm at the gym.
Aside from growing (a given at this point) you've been busy working on other tricks. Blowing raspberries is probably my favorite. The day you learned how to do that you were so excited - you had watched your dad and I do it probably a million times, each one eliciting a big smile from you. So when you finally figured out how to do them on your own I could really see the joy and excitement in your eyes as you then sat there and kept blowing them for a good 10 minutes. I folded the laundry and you blew and blew and blew, alternatively flapping your legs and arms in celebration of your accomplishment, until you had a frothy spit mustache and were tired and ready for a nap.

Now you blow them whenever you feel like it - usually when you've just woken up from a nap, or when you're bored and are waiting for me to come and pick you up. And sometimes you blow them when you're really upset - like the time we were driving home in the car and you were upset and wanted out of the car. You were fussing the whole way home, ending each fussing yell with a raspberry. I snickered the whole way home. You certainly don't understand this now, but someday when you're a parent you'll see how hard it is to take a 6 month old's cries seriously when they're each punctuated with a long raspberry.
Much to my dismay you've learned how to wriggle out of your bouncey seat. The very same seat that enabled me to eat breakfasts, take showers, and just have a safe place to put you when you were very young. I haven't quite motivated myself to pack it up just yet. But each time I put you in it you seem to last less and less time, either ending in loud fusses or you wriggle out.

In a very exciting development, you've started sitting up on your own this month. It was very early on, so the news seems a bit old to me now - but it's still important! Sitting on your own means so many things to you! It's an important criteria to meet before we can start you on solids...you used to love sitting with help, so now that you can sit on your own you're that much more happy...and my favorite - you can now go in the swing at the park and not look like a sack of flour about to tip ass over eyeballs out onto the tanbark. A few weeks ago I parked you in a playground swing and you seemed to enjoy yourself. I use the word 'seemed' because you mostly just sat in the swing and thought about what was going on. As your mom I've come to learn that this means you're curious about what's going on and eventually will learn to love it. But for the time being you just want to think about it and will tolerate thinking about it for a long time. In this case I pushed you for about 15 minutes until the other baby we were with got bored and fussy.
We went to the beach for the first time this month. It's hard to believe that it's taken me this long to get you to the beach given our bay front beach is only a 10 minute walk from our front door. When I was pregnant with you I used to have all kinds of grand romantic ideas of walking with you to the waterfront on a warm breezy day...curling up with you on a blanket under an umbrella, and while you slept peacefully taking in the fresh bay air I would catch up on some reading and maybe snooze with you. Dreaming and doing are two totally different things. For one, I realized that walking to the beach with you was a totally different challenge if I intended to STOP and sit AT the beach. Have you noticed how pathetically small the cargo space is under your stroller? I barely have enough room in there to stow our farmer's market goodies, so it's pretty obvious to me that a blanket, an umbrella, jackets if it gets too cold, hats and sunscreen if the umbrella won't stay up in the breeze, and a book are all a bit on the big side cargo-wise. And did you notice that part about the sunscreen? I hate sunscreen. Hate putting it on, hate feeling it on my skin, hate reapplying it. So you can imagine I'd hate putting it on you, hate feeling it on you, and hate reapplying it. In fact, multiply that times 10 because you're squirmy and I'd feel much much worse if I got it in your eyes.
It took nearly 6 months, but a friend of ours planned a playdate with some other friends, so I packed all our things in the CAR and drove over to the beach. It was nice to finally share that part of our world with you - being we're Californians and all. And even though it was a bay-front beach, it still gave you a good idea of what to expect. Someday we'll make it out to the ocean and you can really see what I'm talking about. But that's a longer drive, a longer day, and a lot more sunscreen.
The last big accomplishment this month was cutting your first tooth. Which was quickly followed with cutting your second tooth. Two cute little teeth keeping each other company on your bottom gums. I hardly even knew you were cutting them - you were such a good sport. You've been drooly for a few months now, so that was nothing new. But one day your dad pointed out that he could feel a sharp little tooth just below the gum line - and sure enough just a couple days later we could see it poking it's little head out. Then a few days later the other one joined it. You drooled, and gummed your toys and our fingers a little harder than usual. But other than that life was pretty normal. Let's hope you cut all your teeth with as much of a sweet laid back attitude as you have so far!
All the love and kisses possible,
Mama