The relationship between Josh and our cat Jeter has been interesting. At first Jeter seemed to ignore Josh and Josh didn't really know what Jeter was. I have been concerned that Jeter would feel neglected since so much of our attention has been on Josh since he was born. Now that Josh is mobile he is showing much more interest in Jeter. Unfortunately in most cases this means Josh grabs Jeter and pulls on her fur. Jeter obviously doesn't like this but she doesn't seem to get away from Josh. Despite her age and Josh's improved crawling, Jeter is still faster than Josh and can fit into smaller places but she rarely runs away from him. We have been trying to teach Josh how to pet her nicely but that has not worked so far (no big surprise).
Then last week we were having dinner on the porch and Josh was sitting in a seat on a bench and Jeter sat next to him. The two seemed more interested in the food on the table than eachother but I was impressed Jeter put herself so close to Josh and Josh did not immediately grab her. Perhaps they are starting to form a relationship... or maybe they just like seeing what's for dinner.
Adjusting to being a parent is difficult but one of the biggest challenges has been child care. For the first few months Margaret took maternity leave and stayed home with Josh. Care was supplemented by help from grandparents and other relatives but Margaret did the majority of the work. When her maternity leave ended we got a nanny who is a college student home for the summer. She just finished her last full week before she goes back to school so we have been in full childcare search mode.
We decided we would try to find a daycare for Josh but that has been quite a challenge. We didn't quite have our s**t together to start soon enough so it has been a bit of a mess. After doing lots of searching (mostly by Margaret) we found 3 possible choices that Margaret would look at. The day before she was to visit a few of the places, two of them called saying the spot was no longer available. One had the spot filled and the other had trouble with an assistant and could no longer take another child. That meant we only had one option left and it was only for MWF.
Margaret looked at the one option we had left and thought it was ok. She didn't think it was bad but had concerns about how Josh would adapt to that environment (It was very loud and crowded). That morning Margaret and I found another option which Margaret then looked at. She said this second option was much better and it looks like it will be a winner. I visited on Friday with Margaret and Josh and we signed him up. It looks like a nice place and hopefully Josh will adapt well to it. He will start five days a week in a week.
Becoming a parent has completely changed our lives for the best. We knew this would happen but probably didn't fully appreciate what that meant. Getting used to having Josh as part of our lives has been a joy but I certainly didn't appreciate how difficult it would be make sure he was being taken care of. Hopefully we will like the daycare we choose and Josh's care will be settled for a while.
Happy 7 months to our baby!!!! There is no checkup until he is 9 months, so we won't have any official stats for a while. However, we think he just finished a growth spurt and has been weighing in at a little more than 19 pounds. He is crawling up a storm and pulling himself up on anything and everything. He is very curious and full of energy (which can be very tiring!).
This has been a tough parenting month for us for a lot of reasons. Josh started off the month getting his first two teeth, and he might be starting to work on getting the next ones. Josh has been taking some spectacular falls, which while funny, are terrifying...and I know it will only gets worse as he gets bigger and stronger. He has gotten much more attached to us, which is very cute, but also makes it much harder to leave him. He will be starting daycare soon (yikes!!!!) which will be a hard transition for all of us.
On the good side, he is really starting to have such a fun little personality and it is awesome to watch him do new things that he couldn't do before. Despite all the challenges we love our little guy and are excited about everything yet to come!
Here are some cute pictures and a video from the last month :-)
So Josh is still not particularly interested in pureed solid food. We started a few "finger" foods after his 6 month checkup, but he can't quite pick up a tiny piece of food and have it make it to his mouth. Last week I was eating a tortilla chip and Josh stole it!! Because everything he touches goes in his mouth, he proceeded to eat my chip. He really enjoyed licking the salt off the chip :-P He tried to chew on it, but I took it away because I didn't want him to choke on it. I decided this meant we should try him on some soft food that he could grab. A few months ago I went to a breastfeeding support group for older babies and one of the other moms was just feeding her daughter a pear, straight from the pear. So I decided to give it a try. He LOVED it!!!!! It was a very ripe pear, so he was slurping and chewing on the whole thing happily. He can bite off pretty big pieces with his teeth, so I was very worried about him but kept a close eye on what he was doing. Today we tried a banana, which he was a bit startled by. He was really excited to put the banana in his mouth, and then when he tasted it he did not look as pleased. I think he was hoping it would taste like my iPhone and not a banana. He then happily chewed and ate a bit of banana. He still does not seem to be swallowing much of the solid food, but I guess that will come with time!
There are very few times when you are in the right place, at the right time, and have the camera ready...this was one of those moments. Fortunately google is smart and also knew these pictures would fit together nicely :-) We were playing around with Josh in his room, and he is just learning to pull himself to kneeling and standing. There are many more toys he can get into now, but sometimes his curiosity does not end well for him. Never fear, no babies were harmed in the making of this video :-)
After a week at the beach we are all glad to be home. When we got home and took Josh out of his car seat, he looked around the room and then gave me a BIG smile. He clearly knew he was home and was very happy. It is really neat to see how much more aware of his surroundings he is now. Over the past week Josh got to try lots of new things and we think he grew up a lot during that short time. Since there were several "big" kids on the trip, he was watching and learning from them. He now is fully crawling and is able to go up steps (!!). He can now push to sit up on his own, push himself up to a standing position (leaning over slightly) and climb up things. As soon as we got home we lowered his crib (after taking the video below) and removed the basinet from the pack and play.
Here are a few pictures and videos of his developments! Of course, he does something perfectly and then we bring out the camera...but we find these videos to be fun :-)
