7 months.

7 months is kind of an awkward stage.

6 months is 1/2 a year, 8 months is 2/3 a year, but 7 months?  Just a random number.  A place-holder if you will.

This is life.

Happy boy, can't keep his hands out of his mouth

Henry is sitting wobbling on his own.  Depending on what is entertaining him at the moment, he might sit for 5 seconds, or 5 minutes.  Naturally, when I tried to video him sitting on his own, he made it for a smaller than usual amount of time and ended up falling backwards and hitting his head....then crying...LOUDLY.  All of this is captured for eternity on my iPhone because I was trying to show off his new skill instead of sitting on standby to catch him if he fell.  Parenting fail.

Henry now prefers spending a lot of his time on his tummy.  He can push up into a modified plank position, where his entire upper body is off the ground.  He is painfully close to crawling, but hasn't made so much as a little scoot yet.  

Henry has gotten to the stage where he thinks he can feed himself.  He is constantly trying to grab his spoon, or just shove his fingers into his mouth along with whatever food happens to be there.  I tried to give him a spoon the other day to see what he would do with it.  I was oh-so-proud that he knew that it belonged in his mouth, but he quickly shoved it so far into his mouth that he gagged himself.  He thinks he is a big boy, but doesn't quite have the hand-eye coordination to carry it out.

Henry has also regressed to a not-so-great napping phase.  I blame it on the teething, but I think he might just be caught in the in-between.  He doesn't need three naps, but doesn't sleep long enough during each nap to only take two.

chubby legs

As I announced on Facebook, as of April, I will be working part time hours.  I was already kind of working part time hours, at a whopping 12 days a month, but now I will be cutting back to 6-8 days a month.  It has been a weird dynamic to continue working and putting in the effort for my full time schedule, knowing that it is only temporary.  I'm ready to fast-forward to April already.

Another notable moment from this past month was our first trip out of town, sans Henry.  JP was standing in a wedding for a dear friend in Nashville, so we made the trek up while my parents kept the baby.  It was a healthy exercise for all of us, but not without the requisite tears (on my part only.)  Henry was in great hands, but it was extremely tough on this mama.  I considered it training for June, when I will leave my little guy for a WHOLE WEEK to venture to Guatemala on a medical mission trip.  I am so looking forward to the trip, but I don't let myself think about it too long, because I go into a mini-panic-attack just thinking about leaving Henry behind.  Yikes.  Pray for me, y'all.

Sassy face

Those are the highlights from month 7.  I cherish these days where Henry will still let me hold him for small amounts of time.  I know as he develops his sitting, crawling and walking skills, there will be less of this in our future.  I cherish his sweet little hands that are always reaching for my face.  Most of all, I cherish the nothing days.  The days that turn into nights where I honestly can't remember what I did all day, but every single second was spent with Henry.  These, my friends, are the truly blessed days.