Seven months old!!

At the beginning of the month, Cameron turned seven months old. I always have great intentions to write the post on the day of or a few days later, but here I am two weeks later and I am just writing it. Oh well... I'll try to be better next month (or should i say, in two days).

Anyway, on to my big seven month old boy! We just can't get over how fast he is growing up and how much he learns every day. His crawling has gotten really good, although it is still more like an Army crawl, with his belly on the ground. He can move really quickly and this past month has discovered that a world exists outside of our living room. He has been exploring every where on the first floor that he can get to, and is enamored with banging drawers in and out in the kitchen.

He has been eating really well too, and has tried all of the main fruits and veggies that are available in baby food form. He has definite favorites, which are applesauce, carrots, squash and sweet potatoes. He eats most everything really well though. He started eating Cheerios and puffs this month, but is still not real good with picking them up. If we place a Cheerio right into his fingers in a pincher grasp, he can get it into his mouth. He doesn't have much success with picking them up off the tray and getting them into his mouth though. Maybe 1 in 20 makes it all the way into his mouth. It is cute to watch him try though.
This month Cameron's first two teeth have come in! At first, they were quite elusive - well, we couldn't get a good picture of them, but sure felt them a lot! - but since then Cam has discovered that a toothy grin is the way to go. It is very cute. Not quite so cute is when Cameron bites down on our fingers - those tiny teeth are sharp! Since he has the teeth, we have tried a few big boy foods with him. So far he has eaten small pieces of apple, banana, kiwi and melon. We either smush them up or give him really small pieces. By far his favorite was the apple, but that wasn't too surprising since he loves applesauce so much.In the last month, Cameron has been to two more weddings (in addition to the one in April) - Marissa's at the end of May and Meredith's at the start of June. That brings his total up to three weddings in seven months - lots of adults haven't even been to three weddings in their lives! He was very good at all of them, either sleeping through them or playing quietly. I was really proud of him.As for sleeping through the night... well, let's not go there. Every once in a while we get lucky and he sleeps through from 8pm til 5 or 6am, but for the most part he wakes up at least once during the night and cries. We are working on it, but it is hard because Tim and I are both so tired!

Daycare is going so well. He is really happy there and just loves his teachers. They always tell us what a good boy he is (which they might say to everyone, but it makes us feel good!). They told us the other day that he is becoming an escape artist though, and has realized that a world exists outside of his classroom. More than once they turn around and see his little feet going around the corner of the classroom and out into the hallway! He is so quick, especially when there is something or someplace he wants like that!!

Another big milestone of the last month has been starting swimming lessons. Tim and I take turns going in the pool with Cameron. It has been a blast, we are just loving it (and I think Cam is too!!). They don't really teach the babies how to swim or anything, it is more playing games and singing songs. Some of the games or songs teach the basic building blocks that the babies will use to learn to swim later. For example, we play a game where there are a bunch of squishy toys in the middle of the circle and the babies have to reach their arms forward to get the toys - this teaches them to reach forward, which will one day turn into the arm movements they need to swim. We also recite this rhyme:

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall (sit baby on edge of pool wall)
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall (have the baby "fall" into the pool)
Humpty Dumpty swam back to the wall (baby swims back to edge of pool wall)

That is supposed to teach them that if they fall into the pool, swim back to the side. I don't know if it does or not, but it is fun. Below is a video of Cameron going underwater. We try to do it a couple times every class, and although he sputters a bit when he comes up, he does really well with it.