7 months

Weight: Around 21 pounds, according to the bathroom scale.

Length: we haven't measured, but he's noticeably taller recently.

What he's eating: Still mostly breastmilk, but he eats solids twice a day most days. We're trying to keep up variety, but his solid diet is heavy on fruit these days. Peaches were recently introduced, and he loved them. I've also been making homemade applesauce with some cinnamon, and that's a hit. He likes working with a spoon: I'll steer the spoon of applesauce toward his mouth, and he'll grab the handle of the spoon and jam it the rest of the way in to his mouth. Then he likes to chew on the spoon for a moment, or use it as a baton/gavel, then attempt to fling it to the ground if the attending parent isn't fast enough.

We have survived a nursing strike, which was a weird experience. For 5-6 days, he just wouldn't nurse. He'd clearly be hungry, and a few times when I tried to nurse him, he'd get as far as almost latching on, and then he'd just lean back and cry. So for a few days there it was exclusive pumping/bottles. I read somewhere to give a small bottle before an attempted nursing session, and to try to nurse when the kid is sleepy, so at bedtime the last few nights of the strike I'd been giving PB 3 ounces or so in a bottle, and then introducing the breast, which worked. Then one morning on a whim I decided to see if he would nurse normally, and to my surprise he did. After another couple of days, the strike mostly fizzled out. That was weird.

But one theory about nursing strikes is that they happen when the baby is reaching some kind of milestone, and he's been going gangbusters on the...

Physical skills. Last month he was "so close" to crawling, and working on sitting up. Now he can:

 a)  sit up for as long as he wants
 b)  crawl - this is now old news for him
 c)  about 1.5 weeks ago he started pulling up on his knees, and
 d)  a few days ago he began pulling up on to his feet.

He spends probably a couple of hours a day on his feet now: he just crawls around to different stuff (the couch, the coffee table, a skirt if I'm ever wearing one, and now the boxes that are starting to pile up) to pull himself up. He's so long he can reach anything that's on the couch now, too. We're so close to closing on this new house, and we could really use the space and the freedom to fully babyproof a place!  

Teeth: Still holding steady at 2, but we're expecting more any day now: PB is always drooling and chewing, and sometimes he seems to be feeling around on his upper gums with his finger. We both keep checking around in there for signs of new chompers, but no evidence yet. The first two popped up quickly after months of chewing and drooling, so I think they just take their time to surface.

Favorite toys: His board books (we stack them up all neat at night, and the first thing he does in the morning is crawl over and pull them all down), especially "That's Not My Bear", the couch (for pulling himself up), the power cord on the laptop and anything else he's not supposed to have. Oh, and most of the other things recently mentioned.

Verbal skills: Still plenty of "mamama" and "bababa", more frequent babbling, especially when he's starting to get a little tired, and plenty of laughing. Sometimes (like when I blow air at the mobile over his changing table and make it move while we're relaxing in the chair in his room) he says, "ooooh", which is (shocker) really cute. He's also getting LOUD - sometimes the babbling is VERY SHOUTY. But it's mostly happy, so that's cool.

Social skills: Still pretty good, though he's shown some signs of stranger anxiety in public situations recently. He's also getting smart about attention: he's starting to do that thing kids do wherein he falls down or bonks his head and then gauges the reaction of the adults around him before he starts crying. Unless I'm in the room, then he just howls. And then I pick him up, because I'm a total sucker.

Sleep: Looking back at the 6-month mark, I'm surprised at how used to new patterns I get. He's sleeping through the night every night now: down for bed by 7:30pm, waking up around 6:15am.

This is awesome, and I'm used to this... but I'm really tired. When he was waking up at 4am, I'd go nurse him in his dark room and then we'd all go back to sleep. Now that he's up FOR THE DAY at 6ish every morning, relentlessly, I realize I'm just not getting enough sleep. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm more sleep-deprived now that our kid is sleeping through the night than I was when he wasn't. Of course, there is other stuff going on (all the last-minute house crap, packing for our second move in less than a year, my busiest week of the year at work last week) but I can never sleep in late in the morning (and "late" now is 7am). Ever. Again. For, like, what? 8 years or something? Sigh. And I can't just bring him to bed right when he wakes up, because he's really awake, ready to crawl and climb and babble and shriek, and not even all that hungry right away so he won't snuggle and nurse or anything, he wants to move.

I just re-read the last few sentences, and it reads something like "ugh, my baby is so happy and healthy... what a pain!" And I really don't want to be that person. I'm just tired. Very happy and grateful for our unbelievably sweet baby, and tired. I understand this is pretty normal for parents.