Beyond the halfway point

Dylan is now 7 months old! The countdown begins for his first birthday. I am a bit apprehensive since he seems to be growing up very quickly. He would much rather be crawling around on the floor than be in your lap. And, if he's in your lap he's trying to get to everything, the remotes, daddy's laptop, everything that's not his.

His most impressive achievement (and my despair) is that he's mobile. Dylan has mastered crawling on his forearms and pushing with his legs that would be the envy of any good soldier. He is deceptively fast and I've come out of the kitchen after a few minutes to find that he's 6 feet away from where he was. Daddy's new receiver has attracted Dylan's attention and after saying no and moving him away multiple times, we employed a strategic pillow defense. Everything is exciting now. Cords, lint on the floor, and Taylor have become new toys. After putting Dylan on the floor with a few toys, I went upstairs to get some laundry. I heard Taylor meowing woefully and rushed down to find that Dylan had him in a deathgrip...by his ass hair! Taylor wisely moves away now when he sees the baby grunting excitedly and moving toward him. I finally brought his play pen downstairs and he happily plays in there until he catches sight of the cat, or a cord, or some lint...We're afraid of what will happen when the true crawling begins. He gets up on all fours and rocks, but military crawls to get around. He will also get up on all fours and flop forward to move, but no actual crawling.

His 7 month doctor visit was yesterday and he is a little over 16 pounds and 26.9 inches long. His thighs are beginning to show some chubbiness, but other than that he's pretty lean. I'm sure with all his movement he does the equivalent of baby aerobics every day! The doctor told me that he's ahead in his development, especially for a boy. He can sit unassisted, but we have to watch him because he will occasionally throw himself backward. He babbles in consonants and vowels and frequently says da, da, da, da. Much to my chagrin there's no ma, ma, ma... :)

He's eating quite a few different solids and will be starting meats sometime in December. He's also started on sippy cups here and there. He gets frustrated after a point and doesn't take the whole amount of formula, but gets through about half and we finish with the bottle.

We'll see how the plane trip goes this time around. I'm thinking it won't be as easy as when he was 4 months. Wish me luck! Back in the states in less than a week!