Suddenly, Brady seems to have figured out how to crawl. He’s still not very good at it, and gets frustrated as often as he makes forward progress, and mostly his forward progress is measured in inches followed by more frustration, still, he’s begun. We’re pleased as punch 😉 A picture to commemorate the occasion:

Brady is 7 months old today. We’ve had another great month. He continues to sleep pretty reliably through the night, heading up for bed at 6:30 and usually fast asleep by 7:30, then not waking till around 6AM. We continue to introduce new foods to him, this month including:

• Rice cereal, often mixed with fruit (he likes most of these concoctions)
• Peaches (he thought they were just ok)
• Melon mango yoghurt soup (he hated it)
• A couple of different squashes (which aside from the summer squash he had already tried, he seems to like)
• Water – he got his first sippy cup. He hasn’t figured out it’s for water, mostly he thinks it’s a chew toy, but he does like to play with it and it’s spill proof. The actual act of drinking water he is fine with, but we have to do it for him.

He’s exhibited a number of new behaviors, including:

• The first signs of free will. He often refuses to allow you to put his pacifier into his mouth, preferring instead to take it from you and plop it in himself.
• Vocalizations with meaning. He doesn’t know any words, but he has sound patterns he uses to let you know he’s unhappy and wants change, which start with grunts and plaintive groans. He’ll make eye contact with you and make those noises, clearly saying ‘whatever I’m doing right now is not pleasing me. Make it change pops!’ If you ignore him he escalates to whimpering and then tears and wails. Recovering from wails can be hard, so generally we try and get involved when he starts complaining.
• He’s realized he has legs. He can bend at the waist, and pulls his legs up till he’s in an L shape. He also discovered he has feet, and the first week or so that he first realized this you could constantly find him bending himself in half staring at his feet, touching them, and even putting them in his mouth.
• Progress on the locomotion front. He can’t yet crawl, but he can move, most amusingly when he sticks his butt in the air and slides forward on his face, but he also scrunches around. He doesn’t have great control over direction yet – if you put a toy in front of him where he can see it when he’s on his playmat, he’ll often try desperately to get to it, moving around but not necessarily towards it. This can sometimes escalate frustration to the point where he starts wailing, but mostly he just grunts in frustration.
• Something to do with neurological development that has him simultaneously rotating his wrists and ankles on their axis while also flexing his leg and arm muscles. He looks like he’s trying to do the wave or conduct an orchestra while dancing. It’s very peculiar. Presumably it has to do with reflex and musculature development. I don’t recall any of my siblings doing it though. There’s a link to a quicktime video of this below:

brady_movement_video

This was also a month of many transitions:

• Susan’s Mom Linda stopped coming every week. She had been coming to care for him 2 days a week. He’s too young to notice of course, though his face brightens when he sees her. She was a fantastic help to us and allowed us to keep him out of daycare several extra months, and we’re grateful for it. At the same time, I’m happy to have my house back to myself 😉
• He started daycare. His first day perfectly captures how this has gone for him. I brought him into the baby room and he looked around, saw several new adults and toddlers, and busted out with a huge grin. We get daily reports from the daycare center and with 2 exceptions they have always characterized his mood as ‘happy.’ We’re blessed with a seemingly happy and adaptable kid. We’re also fortunate to be able to drop him off and pick him up together most days, and it’s a beautiful thing to walk into the toddler room to pick him up in the afternoon and get a beaming grin of recognition when he sees me.
• Stopped sleeping in a swaddle. Early in the month we stopped swaddling him, and now he sleeps as he pleases, sometimes even on his stomach. He’s also able to recover from the loss of his pacifier sometimes, rolling around till he can grasp it and plopping it back in himself. We need to get a good picture of his sleeping posture though as it’s pretty cute – he lays completely splayed out, the picture of exhaustion.
• Went on his first camping trip, and his second. The first one was for the annual Kids Camping Weekend with my college and NY friends. This was at a resort campground in PA (running water, electricity, and cable tv at every campsite?!?). He had a blast and was the center of attention with all the kids, often surrounded by 6-8 children all vying to get his attention and pleading for a chance to hold him. Mostly he handled this fairly well though it was occasionally overwhelming for him. His second trip is with Susan to her annual Falcon Ridge Music Festival expedition, which he’s at right now. It’ s brutally hot, though Mom reports all is well.

To sum up, things are going great. He’s a happy kid, seems to be developing comfortably, and has accepted the transitions he’s gone through this month easily and with little trouble. The only negative thing that I can think of from this month was him developing a fever and a case of the crankypants after he saw the doctor for some vaccinations.

As per usual Susan’s done a great job posting tons of photos. Here’s this month’s gallery, and here’s one of my favorite shots from this month:

The family sans Soolin just before leaving Kids Camping Weekend 2011

and another of my favorites, just because it so well captures his personality:

Brady's most common facial expression