Dear Tristan - 7 Months

Dear Tristan,
And so it begins. This month you’ve learned how to crawl. You’ve been creeping on your belly for most of the month but the Saturday that we were in Alabama, you discovered your knees. You aren’t doing the typical baby crawl yet, mostly crawling a few steps, belly flopping a few, rolling and wiggling to get to your destination, but you are definitely crawling. Today, while cleaning up the playroom, I looked up for a minute to see you standing holding on to a blocks container. I thought, “awww, look how he’s just standing there looking out the window. Just standing there, looking. OHMYGOD. HE’S STANDING. LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW. STANDING!” Then I ran to the garage to get your Dad but by the time I there you had fallen onto your bottom and were happily gnawing on the side of the toy box. You tried it again but weren’t able to do it, falling each time. I felt a little bit of disappointment, although I’m not sure if it was because you weren’t able to get back up again, or because you had gotten up in the first place.

This is because you are going through a great phase right now. You crawl over to the toy that you want. You sit and you gnaw on it for a while. Then you drop it and move on. This makes you so happy. And because you are entertaining yourself a little, we are spared from chauffeuring you around the house to avoid the scream of boredom.

We’ve started feeding you sweet potato puffs which are little cereal like pieces that melt in your mouth. You are quite a fan of them, teaching us that the whole “The Baby Will Stop Eating When He’s Full” theory isn’t exactly accurate, although this seems to be true with other foods like green beans and squash.

We’ve spoiled you. It all started with you wanting to go to sleep while being held. You starting waking up frequently and so were we. So finally we got to where, in the name of sleep, one of us brings you to the bed so that you can sleep on my arm. Now it’s that you only want to sleep in the bed. I can’t actually say that I blame you for this. Our king size pillow topped mattress with it’s 5 million thread count sheets is what can best be described as, da bomb. It has the added benefit that when you are say 6 months old and wake for any reason, all it takes is a quick yell and someone is rubbing your back so that you, (WE) can go back to sleep. We’ve tried weaning you off of the bed, but in the end I know what it will come down to, a battle of tears. It is quite possible that we might have to let you cry in intervals until you learn that you can go to sleep without someone patting your butt. It will break our hearts and probably disturb your brother who we can look forward to calling either your Dad or myself into his room every ten minutes to explain "Tristan is crying" and then ask, "Are you going in dare?" It will be a week like no other for us. Don't worry, I'll blog all about it.

Although your brother gets concerned when you are crying, he’s still in training to be a big brother. Sometimes, you’ll be sitting up minding your own business and he will walk by with a sippy cup in one hand and knock you over with the other hand. You usually aren’t phased in the least by this, you are so used to falling down but it kinda ticks off Mommy and Daddy. Big brother is also quick to take a toy away from you and if we aren’t watching carefully, will steal all of the puffs off of your high chair tray and eat them before we can smack him in the back of the head put him in time out. Your Dad and I, are your defenders. And I just want to let you know that the first time you stand up and knock the crap out of your brother for taking something away or for pushing you over… I’m going to pretend that I didn’t even see it. And maybe you can even have freebies for the second and third times too.
Love,
Mommy