Oliver at 7 months

Oliver. He is simultaneously the sweetest and most consternating little fellow I ever did meet. Let's just say he does not have the same deep and abiding love of sleep that his older siblings did and still do. We are still up every 3-4 hours overnight nursing, but Joel and I are working on an action plan to hopefully stretch his sleep out a little further, a plan involving somehow finding nourishment that he will allow past his cherubic little lips.

Anyway, he didn't have a checkup this month (not another until nine months) so I don't have official stats to share. But he's outgrowing (outgrown, really) his 6-9 month clothing, and the Gerber 12-month footie jammies are pathetically tight as well (but then, they run small). 12-month clothing in general is a bit roomy but it works. I could have sworn I had a bunch of actual 9-month clothing somewhere but I have yet to find it. That's a project for the upcoming week, Lord willing.

He sits up, he rolls, he army crawls. He's never in one place for very long. He prefers to stand up when you try to set him on the floor. He does the standing hip thrusts that come before a baby starts cruising - it may be awhile before we get to that point, but I love his strong legs and enthusiasm for dancing. He head bobs all the time. Dude's got rhythm. Maybe to the beat of his own drummer, but nonetheless.

Speaking of his own drummer, I mentioned the sleep thing above, and will note now that he refuses to take a bottle and has been rejecting solid food lately. He was doing ok with oatmeal, but only sometimes. Then sweet potatoes were doing ok, but then not. Pears and peas have both been met with the kind of face usually reserved for when someone offers you blood pudding and sweet breads. The bottle rejecting has been across the board - he accepted a bottle of breastmilk way back in days of yore, but with me being at home now full-time, there was a long time where we didn't need to give it to him. Possibly a big mistake. He now hates the bottle with the fire of a thousand suns, whether it contains breastmilk or formula, which we've sampled out of desperation in the last day or so. (See above: sleep issues. I need to get that belly fuller!)

I'm normally a subscriber to the make-your-own baby food school of thought. I mean, what does the packaged stuff have over my at-home versions other than a more astronomical price? (I went to the store once with the full intention of buying baby food in pouches/jars to make Christmas week easier. I could not bring myself to purchase a $1.49 jar of baby food. Have prices gone up since my others were babies?) I made my own pureed Oatmeal to start him out before branching to fruits and veggies. I attempted rice cereal this one time but OH MYLANTA the sound of rice grinding in the food processor for like 45 minutes to make it fine enough to cook into baby food puree. It is not worth the torture of huddling in the kids' bedroom UPSTAIRS with books and our fingers in our ears. And he didn't even eat it.

All that to say, when Joel today threw out the idea of grabbing a box of rice cereal just to see if our little prima donna would eat it, my first instinct was to mentally search for a better at-home method. My quick brain scan confirmed what my heart was saying: nothing else is working. I'm desperate. I don't think his belly is getting full enough. Why in the world would we not try it? So Joel grabbed his shoes and even changed into real pants (even as I type this, the light bulb goes on - Isaac and pants. Hmm.) and headed to our local SR.

You guys. OLIVER ATE THE RICE CEREAL. I laughed. I almost cried. I would have done handsprings if I knew how and I were at least twelve years younger. My husband will be the recipient of numerous favors involving delicious food, foot rubs, and maybe even sleeping in one day. Is there anything that compares to the feeling of filling your child's belly, especially a picky child who seems to PREFER his strategy of waking up hungry in order to spend more time with me (or at least with his milk supply) over actually eating to satisfaction.

So, happy dance over here. Oliver's about to go down for a nap and I can only hope it's a nice, lengthy one, especially since his morning nap was thwarted by his siblings scouring the house to find me. Why they thought I was in Oliver's closed room during his nap is beyond me. They can't possibly know my secret desire to hide with the fudge and not come out.

If that's not a positive enough note on which to end, you have to see Oliver's smile to believe it. You could pour him over your pancakes and stir him into your coffee. He has A DIMPLE. Where in the gene pool he got a dimple I will never know, but there it is, and he does this half smile thing that lights up the room and my world. Not to mention when he goes full-on grin. And after he nurses in the middle of the night, with a full belly and sleepy eyes he melts onto my shoulder and it's so hard to put him back into his crib sometimes. Don't get me wrong, my bed calls louder than the baby snuggle, but I do find some blessing in his nighttime sweetness.

Quick endnote: Of course, since I wrote this a few days ago, Oliver has begun for-real crawling, and has also had a few nights of sleeping a little better - like, a stretch from 10:30 - 3:30ish. He imitates head bops and has waved a few times, and imitates drumming on his high chair tray. Willing to eat rice cereal but rejects all others at the moment. We'll get there!