4th of July Recap

We initially had planned to spend 4th of July at my parents with our good friends but Alison & Mark had their baby the day before (yay!!) and Nicole wasn't feeling well so we decided to re-schedule that party for another day later in the summer.  We did still go to my parents though and had such a relaxing day.

We spent most of the afternoon in the pool, ate a delicious meal for dinner and even had a mini firework show in the evening :)

Charlie at Seven Months

Charles Davis... you are seven months old!

This smile says it all.  You are happy, happy, happy and we are loving life with you.  You seriously have the best smile and are constantly getting compliments from strangers when you flash them your gummy grin.  

You weigh about 17 1/2 pounds and are wearing size 6-9 or 6-12 month clothes.  You are still taking 5-6 bottles a day with 6 ounces of formula and are eating food in the morning and at night. You are eating pureed food and so far you do not seem to be too picky.  I have tried a few puffs and yogurt melts but you do not seem too interested in that yet.

You continue to love the water and are very content hanging out in your float.  This is great since your brother requires so much attention around the pool now!

We had several firsts this month including one that I hope doesn't repeat.  You came down with Hand-Foot-Mouth disease and it was awful!  Your poor face was covered in red spots and your hands and feet had terrible blisters.  You can't see it in the picture but your chin was the worst. Your chin periodically breaks out and is red from drooling anyways and when you add that to HFM, your chin was so inflamed.  Your pediatrician deemed this to be "As bad as it gets for Hand-Foot-Mouth" and it was a good 10 days before your skin cleared up.  You were out of daycare for a couple of days since this is highly contagious and thankfully no one else in the family picked this up.  We were supposed to get you baptized during the middle of this but moved the date back to August. For as bad as your skin looked and the blisters that you had, you were still smiling and in good spirits for the most part.

We love watching the relationship between you and your brother and while it excites me, it also makes me nervous for the years to come.  Your brother is always being silly around you and you just love to laugh and smile at him.  Of course this only encourages his silly behavior and while right now I have a hard time holding back my giggles as well, I know I may not feel this way in years to come when you're both acting up.

You are sitting up like a pro which makes life so much easier!  You love to be on your mat playing with your toys and you're happy as long as I'm in your eyesight.  You are such a mamma's boy and I have to say that I love it.  There are times that I wish you would be content with someone else holding you but there is nothing better when your eyes follow my every move and the smile that comes across your face when you realize I am coming to pick you up.

So one topic I cannot ignore is sleep.  You are so different than your brother here and I'm continually reminding myself that one day we will all sleep and that this is just a phase.  I truly thought we were over the sleep hurdle when we had a solid 6 nights where you slept through the night.  You were out of a swaddle (finally!) and sleeping in a sleep sack and were doing great. Then the dreaded HFM disease hit and you were back to waking up at night.  Of course I had to rock you since I knew you were uncomfortable and I fed you since you were not eating much during the day.  This of course created a new habit and we are back to square one with you waking up again at night and then up for the day between 5-6 am.  On a positive note, you are napping in your crib! We are working on a routine but I can usually get you to nap once or twice a day for at least 30 minutes or more.  You still take quite a few short naps in the car but it seems to be working for now.

Another first is transitioning you to the duck float in the bath.  You love to sit in here and splash around and play with toys.  Usually the bath toys end up in your mouth but that seems to be the case with all your toys at the moment.  You do not have any teeth yet but I would guess we are close with the amount of drooling that is going on.

We also have started to put you in the front of the cart when shopping and you love it!  It's a whole new world when you can look around and makes shopping much more fun.

You have not started crawling yet but are so close.  You can definitely get around by scooting when you are sitting up so I imagine it's only a matter of time until you start crawling.  You seem to be much more active than your brother at this age which is a little terrifying since he can be pretty crazy but I imagine that you are simply trying to keep up with him.  You are always trying to grab his cars and trucks instead of your baby toys in front of you which only frustrates him since he's having to learn a new lesson of sharing at home.

Charlie boy, you are such a sweet boy and we are absolutely loving you and your personality that is coming out.  Looking forward to the months to come!