7 Months

We stopped swaddling Austin this last month. It was a hard transition for him. He would wake himself up a lot the first week or two, but has since gotten better. We have found that he likes to sleep on his stomach, which made us nervous the first little while. We would wake up several times in the middle of the night, even if he was soundly asleep, to check and make sure he was still breathing. But if he likes to sleep this way, by all means...

Austin babbles all the time now. It is fun to hear all the new sounds he makes. One of my favorites so far is the clicking sound he makes with his tongue. He started saying dada this last week, though I don't think he knows what it means.

Just yesterday, and today even more, he started scooting forwards. He has been scooting backwards for a little while, but now he has discovered he can go places, where before he was scooting without realizing it. I'm going to have to start childproofing our place.

Two teeth have sprouted in the last week as well. I'm excited to start feeding him things he can use those chompers on. New solid foods he has tried this month are chicken and rice, and mango smoothie. He may be allergic to the mango or bananas, I'm not sure. He is down to 4 bottle feedings during the day, and one at night every once in a while.

This has probably been the scariest month for us as parents. Austin woke up screaming one night, while Aaron was gone, and couldn't breathe in very well. My neighbor drove us to an instacare, and then to the ER, where Austin was hooked up to several things, and given a couple of different breathing treatments.  Turns out he had croup. This was Friday night. Sunday night, another visit to the ER, and his croup had developed into RSV bronchiolitis. We've had to do breathing treatments at home, medicine for his fever, and suctioning out his nose; all of which he hates. Well, actually he likes the ibuprofen and tylenol; they are pretty sugary. His breathing is still labored some nights, and his cough keeps all three of us awake pretty much all night, but things are slowly getting better.

He is still in this phase where he wants to go and grab everything but can't get his body to move the right way, so he gets frustrated. He's started to be able to entertain himself for a little while, but still wants me in view. He sits up pretty well now.

Austin does this funny thing where he will shake his head, or his whole body sometimes, just randomly. I think he likes to do it, or maybe he just does it because we laugh. I still need to get it on video. Now he will shake his head on command, if you do it first.

His clogged tear duct has finally cleared up!