Seven Months Old

Wee Miss Cindy Lou turned seven months old this week. In the last month, she has changed enormously. She got her first tooth, then her second a few days ago. She started eating solid food (though her mouth and her gut are still getting used to it). She started rolling to get around, necessitating the (re-)installation of the gate at the top of the attic stairs. But with all these changes, she continues to be a delightful baby. She's happy most of the time, sometimes even squirmingly ecstatic (especially at the sight of her brothers, whom she adores). And yes, she still sleeps through the night, every night. At the beginning of the week there were a few nights where she woke up a bit early (like, five instead of six), and I thought maybe the time had come to move her out of our room and in with the Wizard. But then her tooth popped through and it was back to the status quo ante. Yay!







The Wizard's also had quite a month. I have often heard it said that almost all kids have an on-off switch when it comes to reading. In the "off" position, they just don't really get it. Then something changes, and everything just comes together. The Wizard's switch flipped over about two weeks ago, and he's sounding out (or at least attempting to sound out) everything in sight: newspaper headlines, road signs, billboards, even the sides of trucks stopped next to us at the light. And of course books. He's always loved to sit and read with us, but now he's often doing more of the actual reading than we are. Just now he read The Eye Book to me, and he only needed help with a few of the words. Wow. We had thought, based on how late he was to start talking, that he would be quite a bit behind Newton in starting to read. Well, not really that far, compared to other kids, but maybe 6-8 months. As it turns out, he's maybe two weeks later. Hard to believe this is the same kid that, on his second birthday, could make all the sounds of the alphabet and produce about 30 different animal noises, but say fewer than 10 words. Remember this?