Letter to Greta: 7 Months

Dear Littlest One,

Seven months! Every month I’m amazed that you’re not a tiny tiny little infant anymore but a growing, curious, active little baby. You’re sitting up on your own now, though I still won’t leave you sitting by yourself since you tend to do the occasional face-plant or tip-over while reaching for a toy. You are eating food, and loving it—rice cereal, sweet potatoes, avocado, squash, peas, and pears so far. You still gaze intensely and longingly at “real” food, though, and I know these purees aren’t going to stay around for long.

You have your first tooth, bottom-center left—it broke through the surface a day or two before your seven-month birthday. You’ve been fussier than usual (still not very fussy), so I knew something was going on. And you’ve entered that cute phase where you approach any object with a monster-ish open mouth, ready and willing to gobble up, or at least chew on, anything in your path.

Your raptor screeches are epic. I’ve never heard anything so ear-splitting. Sometimes you screech so loudly that your entire face contorts with the effort, making you look like a baby possessed. In New Hampshire one morning, you were screeching outside, and a bird in the distance began screeching back, its call identical to yours.

Your sleep is getting better, knock on wood. You’re still getting up twice a night to nurse, but at least you’re going back to sleep each time. Last week, however, you slept through the night twice—from 7:30pm—but then got up for the day at 5:00am. Today it was 5:30. That is very, very early. And though it’s impossible to feel angry when you greet us in the wee dawn with your happy wiggle, it’s still early, littlest one. Much too early.

You love balls—textured balls, plastic balls, any kind of ball. You are pretty good at grasping the textured ones, but the smooth ones (in particular, the ones for Lucia’s ball hut) are just challenging enough to keep you interested, sitting there on your blanket. You like chewing on various teethers, and you like your sippy cup, though I think you like chewing on it more than you like actually drinking water from it.

You are very adept at rolling from your back to your tummy now, though when you do it in your crib and wake up, sometimes you start crying because you can’t figure out how to turn back over. You like to sleep on your tummy now and then, which I’m trying to be okay with. In fact, when you’ve done your longest stretches of sleeping, I usually find you on your tummy when you finally call out.

This month you had your first trip to New Hampshire—two trips, actually. And next month you will move into a new house. You won’t remember apartment life, or sweltering summers on the hot-asphalt playgrounds. Your baby and toddler years will be full of space and light.

Lucia can make you laugh uproariously—you laugh when she jumps, when she dances, and when she comes over to you and giggles with you. You love when she hugs you. It’s so funny to watch you with her now that you’re more aware of this other little person around—you want to grab whatever she’s playing with, or you try to reach out and touch her, and sometimes she’s okay with that, and sometimes not. You’re asserting yourself, littlekins. And you are so cute these days I almost can’t stand it.