Cooper and Daddy have started up swim lessons again. I think he likes swimming since he took the opportunity to practice blowing bubbles in the squash pan before I cooked them up to make food for Nicholas.

7 months

The next official stats will come at his 9 month doctor appointment. Physical: Nicholas’ eyes still look blue, he loves to laugh and giggle at his brother. He is getting pretty stable at sitting on his own, but pillows behind him are still a good idea. His hair is a light brown/blonde color and continues to stand up in the back even as it gets longer. He shows one dimple on his left with a smile. He loves to blow raspberries and roll around when set on the ground. We started physical therapy to help correct his head tilt to the right and try to round out his head. He continues to suck on his pointer finger and thumb of both hands, but we can only tell by the calluses since we rarely see him do it in front of us. Eating: Nicholas loves to nurse and his ideal scenario is to be fed every two hours during the day. If he is being held in a carrier or really distracted the feeding gap can be closer to 3 hours. He still doesn’t take a bottle, but we also haven’t tried to give him one either. Somewhere I read that if they aren’t taking a bottle by this age then they won’t ever take a bottle. He has started solid food so far eating rice cereal and homemade peas. The peas were a parenting whoops moment. I had remembered making food for Cooper, but forgot about the first stage of strained food which I had just bought for him. We will now use bought strained food for Nicholas to get him started on solids and they will likely be much easier for him to swallow. Sleeping: Nicholas is still spicing up how each night of sleep goes. He typically wakes up 1-2 times during the night and nurses back to sleep. With two middle of the night feedings he is also getting a diaper change between sides so that he doesn’t wake up earlier from leaking out of his diaper. He has a final feeding at 6:30pm with a diaper change, pjs, sleepsack and book bedtime routine at 7. Nicholas wakes up around 6 for the day and sometimes a bit later if there was a recent middle of the night feeding. He loves to sleep on his side (like his Daddy) and usually rolls to his side as soon as we put him in his crib. 7 Month Firsts: Eating solids (rice cereal and peas) while sitting in a high chair, sleeping on his side, being able to sit up on his own and first time to the ocean including toes in the sand

Cousin Birthday

Cooper, June, Paige, Nicholas and Stephen
Today we celebrated June (youngest daughter of my only cousin) turning the Big 1. She is exactly 5 months older than Nicholas so it will be really fun to watch them grow-up together. We love visiting their house and checking out all of the goodies in their incredible garden. This year they have ~5 huge (like the size you see at the state fair) pumpkins growing.