Dear Jack,

Today you are 7 months old. On the whole, these months are stacking up quickly, but the last 30 days have been, at times, so very long. You’re on the crest of three big developments: talking, crawling, and teeth. Sleep is disrupted and sometimes rare. Your moods can shift from glee to sorrow in a flash. It’s like a very long crescendo, and sometimes I feel like a third string cellist, watching for the bows to go up and down, wondering how I ever made it into this orchestra.

But that’s not the whole story.

You’re so often the happy, good-natured boy who snuggles up to me, head buried in my neck, who lights up and kicks like crazy when Daddy comes through the door. Right around Christmas you started really talking, mixing your consonant sounds and babbling on and on. Most often, it’s a sweet, cooing “dadado dado dado dadada” or a pitiful “mamamaaaaa.” My personal favorite is the morning ritual we have – I greet you with a little song, and you whisper over and over again “huh…huh…huh…tuh…sss….tuh.” You blow out your “b” sounds while you gracefully move your hands around and around like a conductor. Hmmm…there’s that metaphor again.

Your Uncle Paul gave you some rigorous training in the art of crawling, and you picked it up! Well, almost. You reach forward and drag yourself with a little help from your knees. You get impatient on all fours and lunge yourself forward, flopping your way to your destination. Very soon you will put all these elements together. I think you’re pretty swift now – I can only imagine what’s coming.

You’re still almost exclusively breastfeeding. Every now and then I’m able to sneak in a piece of fresh apple, or one of those organic puffs. For everything else you seem to have no taste. You’ll reach for, pick up, and enthusiastically bite almost anything, but you make faces of disgust all along. I’m not worried, since you are thriving. I just hope you’ll like a variety of food one day. Maybe the food thing will come along when you finally get some teeth. I’ve felt the top surface of your bottom teeth come up and down through the gum for a couple of weeks. It’s foolish, perhaps, but I keep thinking if they’ll just break through, things will calm down a bit around here.

Just typing that made me giggle. We’ve only just begun, haven’t we?

Your Tired Mama (who loves you UNconditionally)