Happy 7 months to you!!!

Dear Caleb,

You are 7 months old today! I cannot believe that you are now closer to your 1st birthday than to being a newborn. You're such a big boy!

Your latest achievements are sitting on your own and beginning to crawl. You've discovered how to rock yourself in the sitting position. This makes you very happy. You have also mastered the commando crawl, and now are working on making your body into a bridge, so you can crawl on your knees soon. You get up in that position and rock back and forth, not knowing what to do next. Keep working at it and you'll get it in no time. I promise to keep cheering you on.

You are also eating all kinds of foods now in addition to nursing. You love everything! Even greens. You are not finicky at all. This is so good, because you know, good nutrition is so important for one's health. You are doing a fantastic job of priming your palate for a variety of wholesome foods to come.

You have really come to adore water! You love to splash, you love to float, and you don’t even mind water in your face. I could not be happier, because I have many-many water adventures planned for you. You just wait and see!

We love taking you everywhere. You are the best little traveler. This week, we will take you to my home country. I think that you will like it. You will get to experience many fun things for the first time, like flying on an airplane, riding on a Metro and yellow streetcar, meeting your grandparents and great-grandparents (did you know you have hair like your great-grandfather, who has a full head of hair at 92?), going to the thermal strands, and visiting castles. Don’t worry though; it won’t all be foreign to you. You will be familiar with the language.

I could go on and on and talk about your great sense of humor, your infectious open-mouthed laughter, how you bat your long eyelashes at me when I speak sweetly to you, or how you understand certain words, like "gyere" (come). But I must wrap it up now, because there's still much to do for the trip. So let me just say that you have been a great joy to your Daddy and I in the past 7 months. You've far exceeded our expectations. We are so thrilled that you are with us. Happy, happy 7 months to you! We love you so very much!!!

Mommy

Splish, splash he was taking a bath

I emerge from the upstairs bathroom looking like a wet duck. My hair is dripping, my makeup is ruined, and water is running down my arms and legs. I fling the wet hair out of my eyes and carry Little Duckling on my arm: a soft bundle of squeaky-cleanness, sporting a fresh face with eyelashes still dripping. His hair smells of Johnson & Johnson bubbles. A smile of contentment rests on his lips as if he had just done a job, and done it well. Why the smile? He just finished BATHING in the BIG TUB. And no, I did not bathe with him. Not this time. Although, looking down at my soppy clothes, I now wish I had.

This bath in the big tub in no way resembled the peaceful, quiet bath time we had shared during Caleb’s early months - back when he was using the baby tub and was a bit apprehensive of the water.

All apprehension officially flew out the window with this bath. I watched him splish and splash, and splish and splash some more. The child’s left arm never did stop. With forceful, sweeping motions, he repeatedly dropped his arm into the water about a hundred times a minute. Not that I had time to count. The right arm did not rest either: it joined in on the fun with almost the same forcefulness as the left. Did water get in his eyes (and nose and mouth)? Oh, yes! Did he seem to care? Not one bit.

I guess, in the past few weeks, he has gotten very familiar with water. He’s been in a lake; he’s been in a pool. He has taken big bathtub baths with Mommy and has even taken showers with each of us. He figures, he KNOWS WATER.

(And while he was thinking he knew water, I did all I could to steady him, and foil his attempts at plunging headfirst INTO the water.)

So... you wonder where the pictures are. My friend, if you had seen what went on in there, you wouldn’t be asking me about the pictures.

Honey, honey, honey...

His new favorite. It’s a puppet book.
(I'm sure the PUPPET part had a lot to do with it!)

Méz, méz, méz...

Micimackó nagyon szereti a mézet.
Micimackó a pocakját dörzsöli.
Ideje enni egy pár falatot! – mondja.
Egy medvének a méz a legjobb eledel.
Micimackó kuncogva habzsolja a mézet. A pocakját rázza a nevetés.
Ajaj! Micimackó arca csupa méz lett!
Nézzenek oda! – dörmögi Mackó. Azzal letörli az arcáról a mézet.
Mmm... nagyon finom volt! Micimackó elálmosodott.
Micimackó nagyot ásit. Majd lehunyja a szemét és mézrõl álmodik.

This is the Hungarian version of Pooh Bear. Sorry, that I did not include the English version. (The very ambitious should be able to find it online.) This book reminds me of one of my favorites from my childhood: the Hungarian Pooh theme song. You can listen to it here:

http://www.zeneszam.hu/html/zenek.htm
(It's the second one down, titled “Micimackó.”) I still love that song!
I think I will have a lot of shopping to do in Hungary.

Sitting (fairly well) and crawling (sort of)

Mom, are you talking about me?

I just wanted to report on a couple of developmental milestones Caleb has reached lately. As you’ve seen from my exciting photos, he is now able to sit by himself fairly well. He can’t sit up on his own yet, but when I put him in the sitting position, he can hold that position for a good while. He also puts his arm out to steady himself or to keep from falling over. He eventually does fall over, but for the most part, he has learned how to fall without hurting himself. Though I still hear a head knock here and there... (Sometimes, I put the Boppy behind him, so he won’t fall straight back.)
He is also practicing the beginnings of a crawl! He scoots himself across the floor, putting one bent elbow in front of the other, drawing up the knees and pushing off with the feet. He gets himself to where he wants to be, so for all intents and purposes, it is sort of a crawl, but it is not the classic version of it. It is more like the beginnings of an army crawl. He still gets tired fast and tends to get frustrated if the object he wants is more than a foot away. I try to encourage him to crawl farther by putting his toys out of reach. If he really wants something, he goes and gets it. I’ve turned around to find him at the other end of a small room, so I know that he can do it.

As I understand, some babies never do the classic (normal) crawl, others graduate from the army crawl to the normal crawl, and others skip crawling altogether. When our pediatrician saw how Caleb could stand on his own two legs, holding on only for balance, she thought that he might skip crawling and be an early walker. I’m glad though that he is doing this army crawl. It prepares me for the next stage: the normal (where did he go?) crawl and/or THE WALKING! Yikes!! We SERIOUSLY need to babyproof our house! NOW!

My very first time at the LAKE (swimmin' with the fishies)

Hi Everyone! This is Caleb. I wanna tell you somethin’. I went to this thing called a LAKE! This is what happened:

All morning, Mommy was tellin’ me: “Calebke, you get to go to the LAKE today! We are taking you!”
I thought to myself: “OK fine, I like to be taken. But what is a LAKE?”

She sounded so happy and excited, I figured out that it must be a good thing. Still, I wondered what it actually WAS. So, I waited it and waited it. All day. And we finally went there in the afternoon and the LAKE turned out to be really nice.

When we got there, Mommy put this whitish stuff all over me. They called it: Sunscreen. But (just between you and I) I don’t think it worked, because the Sun was still shining on me. (??) The Sun was also shining in my eyes. And I didn’t like that. Luckily, Mommy brought me sunglasses.

Daddy took me into the LAKE first. We went real slow. At first, just my toes were touching the LAKE. “Not as warm as my bath,” I thought. Then we went a little deeper. Then MORE deeper. Daddy said my jaw dropped and I looked very serious and surprised. I know! I was experiencing the LAKE! Which was not as warm as my bath! This was all so new to me! Then, the LAKE was up to my waist, then my chest. We were in all the way. By now, it felt warm to me, and I decided that I liked it. I liked it a LOT! I especially liked putting my feet up on my Daddy’s chest and shoveling the LAKE into my mouth with my fist. I would make a splashy and quickly bring my fist up to my mouth and suck on it. Over and over. This was a lot of fun!

Then, Mommy came in with the camera (and a hat). And I had to pose for some LAKE pictures, so that you all could see me having my very first time at the LAKE! And THIS hat, I actually liked. It was a little wet and it kept me nice and cool. Then, Mommy took me and we twirled and floated and swam around together. I like to float!

I kept switching from Mommy to Daddy and back. Sometimes, one of them would go off to the DEEP LAKE to do some DEEP LAKE swimming. When I looked at the DEEP LAKE wistfully, they said I might get to go to that part next time. I sure hope so!

People stopped to talk to us and they said many nice things about me. And we told everyone that this was my first time! At the LAKE! And they were happy for us.

Mommy took me out for a little while, so I could rest from the LAKE and have some applesauce. I appreciated the applesauce, but I told Mommy I didn’t need the rest! I wanted back in! So we got back in the LAKE and we stayed in until we were ready to go. Before we left, Daddy showed me some fishies and said we were swimmin’ with the fishies. He also called Mommy a FISH! And he said that I’m gonna be a fish too!! Eek!

Fish or no fish, one thing’s for sure: I wanna do this again.