Max: 7 Months

7 months is not an age I thought much about. I worried a lot about the newborn days, and reaching that 1 month mark. I thought a lot about 3 months, when I would return to work. Since I thought Max would be born in February, I thought a lot about 6 months, when I believed Max would start attending day care. I had my goal in my mind that we would make it to 6 months breastfeeding and then I'd be done. But like everything when it comes to having a baby, nothing went as expected. Max was born a month early, making him 7 months now. I'm still breastfeeding and now hope to for a year. And Max will be spending the year with my mom and won't go to daycare until he is more like 19 months (an age I can't even fathom at this point). 

While I didn't think much about 7 months ahead of time, now that it's here, I kinda love it. Max is a happy guy. 

This month for Max was filled with many great adventures and lots of play dates. It's easy to celebrate his day trip to Provincetown, or his even more epic day trip to Nantucket. 

Max even went strollerblading one day!

Max has continued to impress me with his ability to adapt to his mom and dad's ridiculous plans for the day. I shouldn't even say adapt… Max LOVES being out and about as much as we do. 

Sometimes in motherhood I get bogged down with the day to day. The adventures are fun, but sometimes the "oh, you need to eat/sleep/get your diaper changed again" thing gets old. Especially on the day when he just wants to fight me instead of actually eating, sleeping or get his diaper changed. It can feel like I've spent the whole day trying to get him to eat or sleep. But, there is a lot of fun in the routine too. The photos below were taken on a day when Max fell asleep in the car and therefore refused to take an afternoon nap soon later, ha. 

My other favorite part of the average day is walk time. Max is a super grump after dinner if we try to just hang out. So we go for walks instead. One day it was raining and none of us had rain gear at the Cape, so obviously Eric just made Max a poncho out of a plastic bag. 

Max loves walking on the beach and now that we are home, he is probably thinking "wait a sec…" 

The fact that Max can sit up now has really improved his ability to play independently. He enjoys sitting on the rug and just playing with his toys or looking at books now. It's amazing how much I can accomplish in the ten minutes or so Max will play by himself. If I want to stretch it out a bit, all I have to do is use whatever I'm doing in a game of Peekaboo. Both dishes and laundry are very useful to "hide" behind. When Max and I play together, he enjoys trying to eat the book as I read it, and also having me stack up a tower and then he knocks it down. What more can you ask for? 

Likes: Max still loves everything I mentioned in his six month post and probably five for that matter. He also loves bath toys particularly if they squirt water at him. He loves being outside: going for walks or runs with us, swinging on the swings, riding on boats, just people watching in general. 

Dislikes: Max dislikes getting into his car seat. He has learned that he can stop me from putting him in (temporarily) by locking his legs in a straight position. Of course, I always win this battle but he hasn't figured that out yet. He is also starting to become more concerned about things like loud noises and falling backwards (while sitting), which used to not bother him at all. 

Sleeping: It's always a work in progress but it seems to be in a relatively good phase now. Bedtime around 8pm, wake up anywhere between 6 and 7. 2-3 naps a day of varying length and times, but a pretty reliable 8:30-10 nap in the AM. 

Eating: Max loves food and eating. His solid food eating times resemble a college student: breakfast at 10:30am, lunch at 3pm and dinner at 7pm. He continues to love pears, sweet potato and chicken, and yogurt. He usually nurses at 7am, 11:30am, 4:30pm and 7:45pm plus when he goes down for naps. I have no idea how this is all going to play out when I go back to work next week. In theory I should only have to pump at 11:30am, but I'm not sure how much milk he actually drinks before naps and if that will equal another pumping session. We shall see.