The crazy thing about baby ages, like Three Months, Six Months, etc. is that they seem to coincide with actual, observable developmental milestones. When a baby rolls over right around five months, you can say ‘See, I told you he was five months!’ This doesn’t work so well with adults. I’ll be 29 next week, but I highly doubt you’ll be able to tell except for maybe noticing (and then kindly pretending you didn’t) all the white hairs that have sprouted near my temples and the few extra lines that have settled in around my eyes. I turned 29 and all I got was this lousy hangover!
Today Drew is Seven Months, and in the past few days I’ve noted a few milestones to mark the occasion. They are not necessarily earth-shattering, but I’d like to record them for posterity so that when friends with younger babies ask me, ‘At seven months, did Drew…’ I can actually answer them because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that mommy’s memory is shot to hell.
First, Drew is sleeping through the night (and now probably won’t since I proclaimed it to the world). Now, I don’t mean the clinical definition of sleeping through the night—five consecutive hours my ass, 7p.m. till midnight DOES NOT COUNT! He’s down around 7p.m., and doesn’t stir until after 6a.m.. I can actually lay down in bed at night and switch off the light without worrying about when the dreaded middle-of-the-night-fusswhinecry-alarm will go off.
Naps have also taken a significant turn, I guess as a result of all the quality sleep he’s getting at night. Where once I could count on a two-hour stretch or two each day, now Drew sleeps in 45-minute increments. As soon as he falls asleep, it’s as though someone hovering in front of me has slapped a red button and yelled, “GO!” I race around the house trying to tackle all the chores I want to accomplish. I cram food down my mouth, run up and down the stairs with laundry, prep food in the kitchen, pay bills, etc. etc. When all that’s done I try to sit still long enough to get through one chapter of my studying. And just as I’ve settled in, I hear a faint ‘whaaaa’ from the monitor. Pencils down!
And then there’s the tooth. A first tooth! I’m excited yet fearful. What will become of my nipples?! TMI? The very tip of one bottom tooth is just poking through his gumline, and it’s a little funny to watch how he’s handling it. And by handling, I mean shoving every available object into his mouth with wild abandon. Yesterday he managed to cram Curious George’s foot and Sophie the Giraffe’s neck into his tiny milkhole and I swear he was eyeing up the laptop cord, too. The kid can gnaw with some ferocity!
We’re in a new phase, again, and all I can do is try to keep up.
Tags: Drew, motherhood
I could relate to so much in this entry — what is UP with the short naps?? Felicity has gone from a multi-hour napper to a quick-snooze napper and it’s killing me. And at least once, but usually twice, a day I have to take her out in her stroller to get her to sleep; when I put her down in her crib she just screams. We had been doing so well with the napping! Why this, why now? {facepalm}