The Spraggins: May 2016

McCoy James :: 7 Months

Its hard to believe how quickly 7 months flies by when you have kids. When I was younger, 7 months seemed like an eternity. 7 months until Christmas, 7 months until my birthday, 7 months until school gets out. 7 months was FOR-EV-VER! But now, 7 months means going from 9lbs4oz to almost 21lbs. From eating every 1.5 hours to sleeping 8-10 hours a night and taking 4-5 hours of naps during the day. From not being able to see past the end of his nose to being able to spot his mommy from across the room and laugh at her silly faces. 7 months from now we will have already celebrated Biggun's 1st birthday and will have just celebrated his 2nd Christmas. 7 months is no time at all now and that makes me sad but it is so fun watching your kids grow and learn new things with every day that passes.

Nickname: We're still going strong with "Biggun". We have had friends at church say that they didn't know his name because we just refer to him as "Biggun" all of the time. I just realized recently that I very rarely call him McCoy. Even when talking about him to other people or when dropping him off at the church nursery.
Weight: At his 6 month appointment a month ago he was 20lbs1oz
Height/Length: He was 28in at his 6 month appt.

What is Biggun up to these days?
- He still only has 2 teeth. I keep thinking he's getting his two top teeth but just when I think they're going to be peeking through, they're not.

- The boy will not lay on his back. I put him down to change his diaper and immediately he's rolling over. He's strong too. Sometimes it's all I can do to get him to lay still lol.

- Over the last month or two he has really found his voice more and will let out these scratchy, almost mad sounding noises. For anyone who doesn't know him, they would probably think he is actually mad or upset but really he's just being loud. He will even copy you if you make the sound back to him.

- He still hates the bottle. We have been trying to get him to take a bottle since Zach and I are going to Orlando this weekend and leaving all three boys at home with Lolli and Poppi (Zach's parents) but he's just not having it. He prefers to "eat from the fruit" as Zach says lol. I guess he'll just have to get hungry enough to take that wretched bottle.

- He has recently gotten into a habit of going to sleep at about 9pm and waking at like 5am. This is new for us since the big boys were sleeping 11-12 hours a night by 4 months old. But like I said, the boy likes to eat from the fruit and waking up early means cuddles with Mommy.

- His big brothers L O V E to play with him and he seems to love being included. It's not uncommon for them to drag him either by his arm, leg, or push his walker over to where they are playing. Or sometimes they will bring all of their toys over to him. He doesn't care what they do to him, as long as he's involved.

- I started him on solids over this last week. With the big boys, I started with rice cereal at 4.5 months and then moved on to pureed veggies and fruits. But with McCoy I decided to do Baby Led Weaning where he gets chunks/pieces of real food. So far he has had avocados, bananas, strawberries, toast, broccoli, and gnawed on a corn cob. So far he has LOVED it all. He seemed a little unsure about the broccoli but he still played with it and chewed on it. I plan to try sweet potatoes and maybe apples next. I'm sure he'll love those!

- I was sick with a stomach virus 2 weeks ago so my supply was really down due to my dehydration. Thankfully we were able to just nurse on demand (pretty much constantly) for about 5 or 6 days and he never got dehydrated and no one else got sick. (PTL!)

- He was dedicated at our church a few weeks ago.

- He is wearing 12m and 18m clothes depending on how it runs.

- Still in size 4 diapers

- His eyes are still a beautiful shade of blue. I hope they stay that way.

- The poor thing is 7 months old and is still sleeping in a pack-n-play right outside our bedroom in the living room. Every morning I have to break it down and put it in our room because the big boys constantly flip it over and climb all over it. I'm afraid they're going to tear the netting or something. His crib is set up in the guest room and he usually takes his morning nap (his longest) in there but I still don't want to put him in there at night because I don't think I'd be able to hear him (and I totally realize I sound like one of those helicopter moms who jumps up at every noise he makes).

- "Die A Happy Man" is still his favorite song. Any time he's having trouble going to sleep, I just sing that song and he immediately stops crying and relaxes. It's pretty hilarious.

- He is such a sweet happy baby. He's constantly smiling and giggling. The ladies in the church nursery even like to come up and see how quickly they can get him to smile at them.

- He likes to be thrown around, up in the air, flipped around but he still freaks out if he gets scared by a loud noise. Even just a sneeze can send him into a fit.

- He's really close to sitting up unassisted. He does really well but if he sees a toy he wants, he just dives for it and can't get himself back upright. I tried to get him to sit up in the bathtub last night but he was too excited and kept scooting down so I ended up just laying him down and he loved that.

- He loves bath time. He loves to splash the water and when I pour the water over his head. He also loves to look in the mirror. He gets the biggest goofiest grin when he sees himself and/or me.

- He is always trying to grab our phones. It doesn't matter if it's lit up or not. If its anywhere close to him, his eyes are locked on it and he's trying to get to it.

- I think I have created a monster. He pretty much wants to nurse to sleep every time. He doesn't have to be asleep when I lay him down so I guess that's a good thing but he will NOT go to bed for a nap or bedtime without nursing (unless we're in the car). But that's okay. It gives us a chance to relax and cuddle.

- He is really close to trying to crawl. He has the scoot and army crawl down. Now he's just got to figure out how to get up on all fours.

- It's really difficult to get him to nurse in public. And if he eats, he's constantly pulling away and looking around and ends up not getting a full feeding in. When I try to cover him to cut down on the distraction, it helps a little but he gets hot and is constantly pulling at the cover. He does okay if I'm looking down at him underneath the cover but it gets hot and its pretty uncomfortable for me so that's a bit annoying. He does the best when I can lay down and feed him but obviously that's not always possible lol.

- I pulled out the walker this past week and he is quickly figuring out how to make it move. His brothers are also good at pushing him around too.

- He loves being down on the floor rolling around and scooting from toy to toy. He also manages to sweep up most of the dog hair so I just pick him up, hold him over the trash can, and shake. **Okay not really. But he does get hair all over him**

- Its been consistently in the 90s for a couple of months now so we've been getting some good use out of our pool lately. The big boys love to run around and jump in but Biggun isn't so sure about all the splashing. He's still a big ol' sissy and gets startled easily. We went swimming yesterday and the dogs even joined in and splashed him a few times and he didn't freak out as bad as he used to so maybe he's getting used to it.

His typical day:
6:00am - nurse, back to bed (sometimes its earlier, sometimes later)
8:00am - wake
9:30am - solid food
11:00am - big boys go down for a nap
11:30am - nurse, nap
2:30pm - wake, nurse
5:30pm - nurse, cat nap
6:30pm - solid food while we eat dinner
7:30 or 8:00pm - nurse, cuddles with Mommy, night night
2:00am - the last few days he's been waking to eat but we've also all had stopped up noses and scratchy throats so I'm thinking maybe he's just waking up because of that and thinks he's hungry. It also could possibly be a growth spurt. Who knows.

It looks like our Boppy picture days are over. As soon as I sat him down he was trying to sit up and/or roll off.

Most of the monthly pictures I've gotten have appeared pretty calm but this is usually what the wide view looks like.

And another wide shot. Since McCoy doesn't seem to want to lay on the Boppy anymore for his monthly pictures, Sanford decided that he would like to. So, he carried it around the room from spot to spot so that he always had a soft place to sit.