Life sure has been busy and Ewan has been growing and changing quickly late. His biggest news is learning to walk last week. On Sunday he could take a few steps. By Tuesday he could do the whole room. Now he likes to challenge himself by walking around carrying something. Often something heavy. He likes to carry shoes and water bottles and books.

He spends most of his time now wandering around on his new awesome legs, picking things up and chewing on them. He loves to watch his big sisters do things and tries to do them himself as well. If they get loud, he gets loud. It’s a loud house. He can also wave hi and bye now, and even says hi and bye (somewhat understandably). His best word, and first, is ‘mama’. That’s what he hears all day long as the girls call for me, so no big surprise there! This morning Celia called for me and Ewan echoed her right away with another ‘mama’!

He’s got himself solidly down to one nap unless we have an odd schedule and take a longer car ride a bit too early or late in the day. He’ll sleep generally an hour and a half, and then overnight from 8pm to 7am. He’s eating a few foods, mostly out of me being too lazy to provide quite the variety. His favorites are definitely beans and O cereal.

Ewan loves to be outside, where again he wanders around holding things in his hands and trying to eat them. He had a good dirt mustache going this morning from all the things I had to pull out of his mouth. He also likes the sand table and how it feels on his hands. He does not like baths or his car seat. Although he did mostly like the pool if I was holding him in it. He also doesn’t like getting his diaper changed much either. Until yesterday though he had a strange misunderstanding about his physical capabilities. Perhaps he thought he was a turtle, but he had previously assumed that if he was on his back, he couldn’t roll over. Yet given his ability to crawl and everything else, he certainly had the muscle strength. Now he’s figured it out unfortunately and diaper changes have begun to be a wrestling match. We’ve been fighting a fungal infection on him for a long time which has been unpleasant for all. The doc says that they just come and go, but he’s not getting rid of it for more than a few days and I’m pretty unhappy about it.

All in all he’s a pretty happy guy, so long as he can wander around and play with everything. He does have more opinions lately and is very feisty when something is taken away from him. His squeals of displeasure are not unlike a pig. He has also inherited the family trait of sticking his tongue out slightly when concentrating.

He has 8 teeth holding strong, but the molars look like they’re starting to bother him. He is 29 inches tall (two inches taller than the girls at this age!) and about 19 lbs.

The only one of my children I made get dressed up for photos. Happy 9 months to my little boy too!

I took this one this morning and I looooooooooooove it.  It is definitely going up on the wall, in a big print.

Yay it is finally getting warmish up here. Just watch out for pushing your toy into fish on the basketball court. He had a total fit that the fish wasn’t moving, back arching, crying-fit. Also loved to try to eat some dirt and sticks. Girls did a lot of biking and tried to climb some trees and we all soaked in the sun.

We’ve had a few very busy weeks IRL in these parts. Jordi ended his previous job and started a new one, after taking a week off inbetween to do things like build the bunk beds and other house hold chores. Then our computer got infected with a virus, and has  some motherboard trouble. But that was while Jordi was gone for 11 days starting his new job in sunny California. Yep, me, three kids, four cats, and 11 days no husband. We made it through, my parents joined us a few days, and with fantastic luck no one got sick. We’ve now finally got the computer on the mend, almost fixed up, although that motherboard issue could take us down anytime again.

Close readers may have a good guess of where Jordi now works!

The last thing I need to do is get my monitor calibrated again, because right now the ‘correct’ pictures make everyone look like they have a bad spray tan.

Well no point in even pretending I’m close to a 7 month update now. Let’s just make this an official 7.5 month update. I don’t feel like he even did a ton of changing from month 6 to 7 even, but in the last two weeks lots to talk about! In his 7th month he mostly worked on learning to crawl better and faster, enjoying his ability to move around.

In the last few weeks though he’s made some major new brain connections. He now understands where he is not allowed to go (the bathroom, the kitchen) and tries to sneak his way into them by being stealthy. He also likes to pretend he’s just going to play with the gear magnets on the fridge, and then make a break for the cat food, litter or water dish when he thinks we aren’t looking. He also knows that if he wants my attention he can go for the cord under my desk that I haven’t figured out how to babyproof yet. It doesn’t hang down, and I need one thing to be plugged in there for all the computer stuff. The toilet is a toy right? it even sounds like TOY-let yes?

He loves to be going around exploring, either at home, my parents house, the library and the science museum. Today at the museum he had an employee just sitting with him bringing him item after item to touch and explore, like shells, sponges, bones, and pillows of different textures. He’s very rewarding with his smiles. If he’s feeling unsure though he’s all mamas boy. He mostly likes to hit things together or put them in his mouth. He also loves his sisters and see what they’re up to and if he can get his hands onto it. He does not understand too well that they are also my children and deserving of my attention. Unless he’s nursing, he does not like me reading to the girls, especially if they are in my lap. He just throws a fit that he is not the one in my lap and looks really pitiful, Josie will generally give in, Celia won’t. He does love to take a nice morning nap while nursing as I read to the girls though. You should imagine the scene with him on my lap on a pillow, one girl on each side of me, plus George the 19 lb cat trying to find a place to sit on my lap and usually one of the girls at the same time. Yesterday George gave Ewan’s head a complete bath during reading time to show how much he loves us.

Just in the last couple of days Ewan’s finally started to eat a tiny bit of food. He had mostly been refusing it previously so I have barely even been trying. Now he’ll swallow a few bites, broccoli is a favorite and banana and black beans have also been enjoyed. Avocado a little, just in case you thought we only fed him foods that start with B. He still nurses all night long and cuddles.

No idea how much he weights or how long he is, but he’s getting bigger and chunky too. He’s solidly wearing 12 month clothes, with a few 9 month clothes hanging around still. Tooth number 6 is about to make it’s arrival! We have also been battling major rash as he poops all morning long and frequently throughout the day too if anyone has any brilliant suggestions. He also just bit my shoulder tonight to get my attention for the first time, so that’s a not so fun strategy he’s trying out, let’s hope he learns quickly that it does not work.

Physically he’s close to walking. He can stand for several seconds before slowly lowering himself to the ground. He can pull up to standing on pretty much anything, including a flat wall. He does a bit of cruising, but mostly just drops back down to crawling to get around any significant distance.

They like to hang out at the gate, maybe they’re hungry?

At six months we let the kids start eating! Ewan has been no exception, except that he isn’t particularly interested. He’s taken each food and tried a small bite, but really has barely swallowed anything. Broccoli has been the most liked so far, he’s taken a few bites. But mostly he just wiggles the food around before throwing or dropping it on the floor. He’s got the fine manual control even to pick up peas. We’ve tried sweet potatos, carrots, broccoli, peas and bananas so far.

He only had two a week ago. Mommy is tired.