Seven Months

Eamonn is closer to 7.5 months than 7 now...oh well. The poor second child!

This past month has been so much fun (with the exclusion of the week of hellish illness). Eamonn is very social and all you need to do is look at him to get a huge grin. Anyone who does and is rewarded with his look of pure joy and love usually shakes their head and says something like "this baby!"

Eamonn is officially crawling, has been since the weekend of December 14th. It is army crawling, but that's all Finn ever did, so I count it! He favors one side and looks like he is pulling his whole body with one arm, which makes for a funny sight. I can now just lay him down, spread a bunch of toys around him, and he happily explores.

He does this spitting sound with his tongue while he's smiling. He's making a lot more sounds in general. He often starts with the "ah! ah! ah!" and then I'll "ah!" back to him and we'll go back and forth like that for five minutes. I remember growling back and forth with Finn around this age. When Eamonn is fussing/crying (not often), he usually makes a "ma" sound. It's probably just a sound he is making, not an actual association with me, but I love it all the same!

His schedule is all over the place in terms of naps. That's partly just him and partly that he sometimes doesn't get to nap right when he needs to because of preschool and gymnastics for Finn. He usually takes three naps a day but sometimes only two if the first two are long or if he wakes a bit later than usual. Bedtime is usually between 5-5:30.

My mom kept doing "how big is Eamonn? soooo big!" and lifting her arms up while we were there for Christmas. By the end of our stay, he had started bringing his arms up slightly and then putting his hands together..the beginning of a clap. I absolutely love it.

Seeing him so sick (sicker than Finn has ever been in his life) was heartbreaking. He was so miserable and I was so helpless. I am so grateful for his usual health. I have a lot of respect for parents of chronically ill children.

Any and every roll on his body is courtesy of his mother, thank you very much, as Eamonn is eating perhaps one spoonful of food every few days. He had started to eat about a few spoonfuls a day the week before he got RSV. Ever since then he has no interest (as you can see in the avocado video), though I offer every day. He might go straight to soft cubed food and skip the purees altogether. If Finn had done this with food, I'm sure I would have asked the pediatrician if it was okay. This time my attitude is basically "he doesn't look hungry and I'm pretty sure he'll eat food at some point in his life."

Despite not using it for much eating, I love being able to put him in his booster seat now and letting him play with some toys in the kitchen while I play with Finn or cook or clean up. He loves tupperware and his toucan toy and smashing banana between his fingers.

Eamonn is such a happy little guy. In the morning, I can tell by the noises he makes whether he is up for good or will go back to sleep. When he's up for good and I take him out of his room, I can see the smile break across his face, even in the dark.

To give an example of his mildness, all four of us were riding in the car the other day. It was cold, so both boys were bundled up. Eamonn was quiet but he usually is in the car these days as long as he isn't tired, so we didn't think anything of it. When we got home and went to get the boys out of the backseat, we saw that Eamonn's big winter hat was completely over his face!! I almost lost it, worried he couldn't breathe, but we ripped it off and he just looked at Jeff and me for a second and then grinned. The two of us were flabbergasted. He hadn't made a peep of protest.

Happy seven months to our Eamonn Patrick. As Finn says, we love you "all the way up to the sky and back down to the ground and to the beach and to my crib."