seven months with our man

1. He is sleeping!!  Sound the horn, ring the bells, Judah is a nighttime sleeper now!  He goes down at 7:30 pm, wakes up for a feeding around 5 am, and then sleeps until 8 am.  I wish I could say he just started doing this on his own, but it was paid with a price. After two nights of waking up every 5-10 minutes for about an hour after we put him down, we decided it was officially time for the cry it out method.  Our doctor, most people we talked to, and books that I've been reading said that 6 months was the time to start pushing sleeping through the night if it wasn't happening.  I honestly dreaded having to do this and just kept praying that he would get it on his own.  But after he pulled the 5-10 minute stunt after his 6-month birthday, we knew we couldn't avoid it any longer.  It honestly wasn't as bad as I anticipated.  The first night he cried an hour and 20 minutes with us going in to check on him and calm him down in increasing time intervals.  The next night he cried for 45 minutes, the next was 20 minutes, and the last night he put up a fuss was for about 10 minutes.  We couldn't believe it worked! And if it wasn't for a video monitor, there would have been no way we could have done it, haha.  Seeing that he was OK and being able to turn the sound all the way down but still watch him, calmed me down and kept me sane.  I'm so thankful that he didn't put up a terrible fight because I know many babies who just didn't succumb to the CIO method.  Now, if he would just go down easy for his naps, then I wouldn't know what to do with myself (or my free time)!
   
   
2. He is cutting his first tooth! The other day Judah grabbed Joel's finger, bit down, and he yelled, "Jenny, I feel something hard!" So of course I came rushing in (after months of me feeling his gums only to feel squish) and felt the beginnings of our boy's first tooth!  I was so happy, I cried.  Now, you can see it peeking through and trying to make its way out.  It's his left bottom tooth, and we are so excited!
   
   
3. He is sitting on his own 90% of the time.  He sit fine as long as he's playing with something in front of him, but once he realizes it, he falls back to the laying position.  I think he definitely prefers laying down because it means he can roll.  He doesn't like to sit in one spot too long unless he's entertained. (sounds like a bearded someone I know...)
   
   
4. He rolls everywhere!  We can't leave him alone anymore for longer than a couple minutes because he rolls from one end of our rug to the other in a matter of seconds. He is going to be quite the explorer when he learns to crawl and I can only imagine what our life will look like then.  I think it's officially time to buy one of those fences you can put around him to keep him contained.  How early is too early to teach a child boundaries?? haha
   
   
5. He has so many different smiles, but his latest is our favorite.  He started doing this thing where he touches his gums together, sniffs in with his nose, and as a result his eyes are almost more squinty than mine. It makes me laugh so hard every time he does it.  He used to just do it as a response to when I would say, "saaay mom-ma." But now he does it while eating and sometimes for no reason at all.