7 months!

  Today, Caleb is 7 months old.  To celebrate, he's going to eat sweet potatoes and sleep all night.  (clicking heels together three times...there's nothing like sleeping all night, there's nothing like sleeping all night, there's nothing like sleeping all night)  Well, he'll do at least one of those.  Isn't there some study on the power of positive thinking?

  Caleb keeps growing up.  He now holds his own bottle when I feed him.  It's a far cry from the early days when he and I went to battle each morning!  Of course, he's fascinated and thrilled with being able to feed himself--he grips the bottle in each hand and jams it into his mouth.  (Well, it actually ends up in his eye more often than his mouth, so dad offers some directional guidance.)  He finds this so entertaining that he pulls it back out and laughs gleefully.  Which means, of course, that feeding him takes three times longer than it did before he could hold his own bottle.  But it's a lot of fun.  I will admit that I have to remind myself to stop worrying about leaving on time and just enjoy the laughter that erupts from him every time he pulls his bottle out of his mouth.

  They're also beginning to move him up in daycare.  The next class is only separated by a clear wall, but in my heart it feels like another world.  In there, children crawl and run and do the rambunctious things boys do.  (It's also a class of all boys, strangely enough.  I can picture him now, hands pressed against the glass, wondering why the girls in his class no longer respond when he talks to them.)  I've been pretty resistant to the idea of him moving up, but I realize it's just fear.  I can't control him growing up, getting bigger.  I want the daycare people to watch over him like a hawk every second of the day, lest he topple over or smash his finger in a toy.  God is trying to teach me to give up control, to let him grow.  He'll be crawling around the daycare (and our house!) soon enough, and I need to accept it, to enjoy it, to cherish it.  They'll still watch over him and take care of him in the next classroom.  It's not like they throw them in there and lock the door, like some toddler version of The Hunger Games, only letting the strongest emerge.  He'll be fine.  (Repeat:  He'll be fine.  He'll be fine.  He'll be fine...)  I'll be fine, too.  I just need to accept it.  Caleb's growing up.

  The delightful part of it is that all of this means that the laughter will be bigger, too.