slackin'

So Sam is napping and I should be doing some work, but instead felt like posting pics of our super cute boy and figured I'd write a quick blog.

Yesterday we went to a friend's baby shower, and there were lots of other babies there! Sam was the youngest and biggest one there. There was an 8-month-old baby walking around! And another the same age just figuring out how to lift herself and balance on her hands and feet (her mom called it her tabletop position). This was the first baby Sam has ever met! Wait...that's not true...but the first he really interacted with! They shared toys and took turns reaching for the faces of one another. It was very cute! I know the doctor always says what a big boy Sam is, but I didn't really realize it until we saw the other babies. It's so fascinating to see how unique every person's development is.

Sam tried oatmeal yesterday and loved it. I find that he eats the store-bought food way more than the stuff I grind for him. I think it's a texture thing. I think I don't get things smooth enough. I've decided that the store baby food is way easier for us though, even though I hate wasting the packaging and I question the nutritional value. I even bought the regular baby grain cereals instead of the organic ones since they were a third the price, only to go home and realize that the non-organic ones really throw TONS of extra misc. stuff in them and now I feel guilty and like a bad mom. Man, parental guilt is a force to reckon with. I think we will try to start increasing his solid food intake now, as he's just about 7 months old -- 7 months!! And he seems to really like eating now.

Sam is now regularly nursing at 3-hour intervals (sometimes less!!) throughout the night. He does his "long stretch" between feedings now during the early morning -- often correlating to the hours when I'm away from home. Seems like a definite backtrack in the sleep department. Teething? Mom going back to work? Who knows. He spends every night in our bed, and nearly the whole night there too. We try comforting with other means, but he seems to scream until he gets the breast and it's just so much easier to do that and get back to sleep than to try other methods of soothing him. Should we be enforcing a stricter sleep routine? One of the moms I talked to at the shower keeps her little one on a very tight nap and sleep schedule, and sure enough, the baby sleeps through the night. She started this at 3 months. Heck, I dunno. I mean it depends so much on your family routines and the individual baby. I'm surprised that sleep is just a recurring issue and theme throughout early motherhood.

Sam is doing so well at sitting independently and he's really scooting around well too. He loves peek-a-boo.