Dear Matthew:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This has probably been your “least-traveled” month. We didn’t brave the airports for anything, and for that your mama and baba are profoundly grateful. It’s also been cold as anything out

Oh wait, we did travel - to the grand city of Glensomethingsuburbiahell, Illinois. (Baba has just pulled a map out to tell me that it was in fact Glenview) We have been trying to figure out what’s going on with your digestive tract that could be causing excessive mucous, so after long trials of voicemails and faxes, we finally got you to a pediatric gastroenterologist up at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Long story short, the doctor doesn’t think the mucous or your eczema issues are related to food intake. We are considering removing soy from our diets to see if that will help, but will think about it more after we get results back from other tests. This and next month our next adventures will be a pediatric allergist and a pediatric dermatologist!

All of that boring stuff aside, your personality continues to explode. You love smiling, especially at your baba when he says this:

You are an expert at sitting now! You can sit for quite a long time - the other day for an entire hour - just playing with your toys, or as we call it, your bag of tricks. You have gone back to hating diaper changes and are okay with baths (we have to get you a bath seat of some sort; the infant tub we have for you just won’t do anymore.

You have discovered your body. The way you abuse your genitals makes even the strong and mighty wince in their boots. You are also displaying an impressive amount of flexibility - who knew a baby with so much chub could fold his body in half and suck on his toes? Not I. Yet you do! And you still suck on them despite your feet starting to smell like… feet. Yeesh.

You and Ava are like two peas in a pod. You adore her and she loves you - and knows her place in the family as she is quite often presenting belly to you. She would love nothing more than to lick you from head to toe, and you would love nothing more than to let her, so your time with her is monitored quite closely. Still, it is so wonderful to see how curious and excited you are to see your good friend Ava. You recognize her name - when we say, “Where’s Ava?” you bend this way and that to find where she is - either under Baba’s desk or in her crate.

You are officially eating adult food… pureed with breastmilk at this point! On your six month birthday, I tried giving you a few spoonfuls of brown rice cereal, but the look on your face quickly told me that you thought I was feeding you rat poison, so I stopped. You have tried sweet potatoes and green beans, and enjoy making a mess and trying to eat the spoon as well as your bib. You have also raspberried while your mouth was covered in sweet potato, so you can effectively share your food with Baba. How very kind of you! Next up in the freezer, all pureed and ready to be slurped, are acorn squash, butternut squash, carrots, and more sweet potatoes. One of these days, save the green beans, we will have you eating non-orange food.

We won’t talk about how your diapers have changed in consistency, frequency, and explosiveness. Trust us, they have. Oh yes, they have.

Your sleep has been up and down. Some nights, you fall asleep at my breast, some nights you scream and sob and shout, despite our trying to comfort you, until you fall asleep in an exhausted heap. I wonder what is going on in your brain - what it’s like learning things for the very first time - and how confusing that is for you. How it must ache in your mouth to grow new teeth (you have two more on top of your bottom ones, and now you grind your teeth from time to time!) and what it feels like when you run your tongue over these new and hard bumps in your mouth. Sometimes you wake up sobbing and pissed off, and so I creep into the bedroom, hold your hand and sit with you as you calm down, your breathing evens out and you fall back asleep. Other nights, you fight me madly. In the middle of the night, you come into bed with us so you can nurse and we can both get some sleep. I know you won’t sleep in our bed forever (thank goodness, because I can do without the random headbutts to my chest some mornings!), but there’s something especially sweet and comforting about curling up next to a sleeping baby.

I know it’s all a very confusing and sometimes scary time for you, living right now. Just know that we’ll be here for you, at least for you to headbutt and divebomb as you figure stuff out.

With much love,

Mama

A few favorite pictures from this past month (link leads to Month 7 photo set)