Alessandro - 7 Months Facts and Stats

Little Man is getting ready to crawl! Here's a little video where, as he does dozens of times a day, leans forward and with a little effort, gets his knees beneath him. He rocks back and forth, getting used to the balancing thing, and then usually falls on his face and tummy. At Grandma's house the other morning, he actually moved his knees forward two little steps before falling on his tummy. In the meantime, he has discovered alternative ways to transport himself while his upper-body strenght gets perfected: he rolls across the room, he will "bottom shuffle" (scoot around on his bottom, using a hand behind and a foot in front to propel himself), and commando crawl, slithering forward on his stomach.

We don't have another "official" doctor's appointment until 9-months, but we went in to check for an ear infection and found he was 19 lbs 5 oz (and didn't have an ear infection). He went through a huge food frenzy when he was eatting about 5-jars of food a day, but has backed down to about 3. And, mom has not had any luck in 1) getting him to sleep through the night or 2) take a bottle. This guys just a boob-man and I think I'll just start giving him a sippy cup and make that the next goal.
Current schedule: out of bed by 7am, nap from 8:30 or 9am to about 11am; lunch (1-2 jars of stage 2 food) at 11:30; nap from 2-4pm; dinner (another jar with oatmeal or rice cereal mixed in) at 4:30pm; get ready for bed at 6:30pm, sleep by 7:30pm (depending if the girls are going down at the same time), waking at 11, 2 and 5:30am, but we're trying the "cry it out" method to curb this pattern. He's only slept through the night once and, wouldn't you know, the girls were up 4-times that particular night leaving me no sleep!! (Grrr!)
This month, we had some photographs taken by an excellent photographer who specializes in the old-school styles and vingnettes. I wanted to mimic some of the old photographs I have of my mom's parents. I have a photo of my Grandfather, about Alessandro's age, wearing his baptism gown. Although their coloring is different, the pose is nearly the same. I plan to hang them next to each other. For the girls, I have other pictures of my Grandma and her twin sister that I tried to mimic. They were a little bit older than my girls at the time, but we found a set of vintage dresses to borrow and I made up some large silk bows and styled their hair the same way my Grandma and her sister's were done, although their hair was shorter with the classic 1920's bob do. I'm very excited about the whole grouping.

Tea Time for Tots

Friend from school, Hanna
Bettina and her play high tea
Ava awaits her high tea goodies

I've found this little tea shop, Crown and Crumpet, in Ghiradelli when we went over there for our Christmas hot fudge sundae. The girls and I invited a friend of theirs from school, Hanna, and her Mom and baby sister to meet us there to try it out.

It's absolutely adorable and the hostess wonderfully helpful. She rightly judged our group of seven (5 kids: 3 aged 3-1/2, a one-year old and the last just 7-months) and put us on the fast-track and brought the girls some play food shaped like tea cakes, a 3-tiered cake tray and thongs for each little girl. This busied them until the "real thing" came along. A very helpful hostess, she suggested the Tea for Two combination to be split by the whole table with a pot of "Blue Eyes" (aka "pink") tea for the kids and a chai for us adults. It was perfect! The kids got to try crumpets, scones, tea sandwiches, tea cakes and all the trimmings of curd, whipped butter, strawberry jam, etc. They loved the fact their tea was pink, too!

This was a very fun activity - a bit fast-paced for a nice tea for me, but that's just life with 3-year old short-attention spans in a relatively nice tea shop. Hanna's mom, Gina, and I fantasized about doing one of these at home -- getting some pretty fabric for table clothes and cute little children's tea dishes. At this age, they'd appreciate it just as much and there wouldn't be the anxiety of the "one-false-move" that can happen so quickly with little kids in a nice place. Probably a more relaxing place to go with either an older kid (5-years+) or with a better 1:1 ratio.

Afterwards, we went across the way to a new kids' play gym called Peekadoodle. Very fun and decorated with common San Francisco themes (Golden Gate Bridge, Victorian play house, cable car, etc). However, it's a monthly membership that's too rich for my blood ($110/month). I prefer to dabble in play places and try different things different days. And, with pre-school 3-days a week, we wouldn't be able to go often enough to make it worthwhile. If I were very local and lived within walking distance, it would likely be a no-brainer. However, this time I'll pass.