7 months

Ace is 7 months old today. Man, 7 months old. It's unbelievable.

He's so cute right now. Not that he hasn't always been cute, but for the first 4-ish months of his life, he was kind of a lump. A lump to be fed and changed and cuddled and loved, but a lump nonetheless. Now he's laughing and smiling and really interacting. He's also starting to reach for things, I think. He was in his Exersaucer yesterday and in the process of waving his arms around like babies do, he hit the rattle... then hit it over and over and over and over again. Unfortunately, I couldn't get video evidence of this, as every time a camera is pointed at him, no matter how far away or how inconspicuous the camera's placement, he homes in on it and gives it a dumb look. I have to trick him to get him to smile in a picture. (For those of you just tuning in, it might seem strange that a 7-month-old isn't reaching for things well yet, but he was a preemie, and should only be about 4.5 months old. Thanks for reading.)

But dangit, when this kid smiles. Life is good when he smiles. I play a game with him now called "Where's the baby?" I'll sit in front of him and say "Where's the babyyyyy?" two or three times, then look at him, gasp loudly, and say "There's the baby!" He LOVES it, it guarantees a good laugh or two. I love it when his laugh produces this adorable "ag-eeee" sound.

He smiles and kicks wildly whenever Drew or I walk into a room. That's awesome. It's really nice to have him actually recognize us. That's different from his reaction when someone else walks into a room - they're generally fixed with a stare. Always a smile - the boy loves his smiling - but just a look. Not for me and Drew - we get wild kicks. Even first thing in the morning when he's just woken up. He talks to himself when he wakes up for a good while before he starts to fuss to be fed, and I'll walk in there right after the fussing starts and I get this huge grin and the feet start flying. I love it.

His nicknames (you know, other than Ace) are sugar, booger, sugar booger, bunny, baby boy, and Ace-a-buns, which is a variation of Ace-bunny, which I realized is just too emasculating for words, so I'm trying to phase it out. The stupid things that come out of your mouth when faced with the cutest baby in the world...

He's dug most of the solid (and I use that term loosely) foods we've given him so far, but he pretty much hates peas and prunes. I'm with him on the prunes, but he's got to get them in his system somehow.

I've got him on a pretty good schedule, and we're working on getting him to soothe himself to sleep. We'll have a good couple of days, then a CRAP day, then a good day. Today is the former. He woke up at 5:30, didn't go back to sleep till nearly 7, slept till 8:30, then had a BAD time going down for his naps. He took nearly an hour to go down the second time. Oy.

I'd continue rambling about my baby... but...

While I started this post at 6 this morning on the craptop... I mean laptop, I'm finishing it on our shiny new iMac. It's freakin' bomb, y'all. Drew left work at 2 so he could come play with it, and play with it he has. Now that I've taken a moment to finish this post and check my e-mail, he keeps coming in and showing me all kinds of fun things the computer does. It's cute, he's so excited. Now that I've banished him from the room for hovering, he keeps hollering in at me about some stuff on the TV... or talking to himself... Right now he keeps yammering something about Dean Stockwell. So I reckon I'll give the computer back to the man. I have a shiny new recipe waiting for me in the kitchen.

Happy 7 months to Ace!