MR. TANNERS: 7 Months!

In the blink of an eye, one more month has passed. And Tanner is now 7 months old! And he's bigger and better than ever.

Mastered the art of sitting up and playing with his toys. He'll occasionally lose his balance and fall over - but he never cried - even when he hit the wall or his wooden toy box - which made us think he'll do it on purpose to get to his stomach. But alas, he is human and finally cried one day after bumping his head of an office chair.

Smiles when you look at him. It's the best present when we come home. And he still usually smiles with his tongue sticking out - this is his signature smile. He usually giggles when you play peek-a-poo with him, toss him upside (yes, he likes to hang upside like a monkey), and sing him my special song.

Tanner is obsessed with his sippy cup. While I still nurse him, his ped recommended letting him drink 1-2 oz of water to pass on the fluoride for strong, healthy bones. I wasn't sure how he would do with it, but he absolutely loves it and drinks from it quite well - although he'll sometimes get too much and drench himself. Any time I need him to be quite and quickly (like at church during the prayer), I give him this and it works like a charm.

Still no teeth, but I'm not complaining. If you only saw the iron clench he made on the sippy cup, you would be scared, very scared. I have to tug it out of his mouth after he gets ahold of it. But we'll cross that bridge when that day comes.

Tanner still loves his baby food. It's hard to say what his favorite is cause he seems to eat it all. He use to open his mouth wide and wait for you to land it in his mouth as he made these cute anxious sounds of excitement...but now...he is already trying to grab the spoon on every attempt and makes feeding him quite the messy challenge. We usually fail and end up giving him a bath after his dinner.

Survived another cold - this time without getting an ear infection. Both Anthony and I had the same thing and were miserable. But for Tanner, you would never had none if it weren't for his runny nose and - oh wait - here's come another sneeze - aahhhh chuuu!

One night he was crying as we were trying to get him to go back to sleep, I swear I heard him say ma-ma-ma-ma. We once again tried the cry-out sleeping method but failed after 10 minutes. He was getting so worked up and it sounded like he was yelling for me. Who can turn that down?? Anthony keeps reminding me his first word is going to be da-da, but I can still pretend, right?

Tanner also likes to grunt. I don't know if this is a boy-thing or what, but he grunts when he's tired, not happy, not feeding him fast enough, or pretty much he wants your attention. I hope this is just a phase and will pass, but we will see.

Growing like a weed. I always try to buy clothes one year in advance when they're on total clearance. But as I was buying 24M and 2T clothes for next year, it just didn't seem possible that my little Tanners could really be that big in one more year. But Chels kept re-assuring me that he's a big boy and now doubt will need the bigger sizes. Considering how he's already starting to transition from his 9M to 12M clothes, she's probably right. But still...

Open wide

Tanner likes to play with a clean toothbrush just for him while I'm getting ready in the bathroom. I get it wet and he loves the water and the texture on his gums. Now I just hope he still enjoys it when he actually needs it.

Now if only I was as photogenic as Tanner...