Wow

I don't really have time to blog (there's a surprise) but since this is also more or less my baby book:

Mordechai is seven and a half months old. He started babbling in a serious, interested, considered way a few weeks ago, and erev Yom Kippur, two and a half weeks ago, I looked across the room to where I'd left him enjoying some tummy time and did a double take: he was sitting up, all by himself, in the middle of the stone floor. I did one of those slow-motion dives across the room, sure he was about to topple over and crack his skull on the floor. He didn't. Not only did he not fall, he got himself back on all fours and started sort of heaving himself forward. A few days later, he was crawling. On Thursday, he was in his pack'n'prison and I realized that he was up on his knees, reaching up and trying to get a hold of the side of one of the walls. My next-door-neighbor was there and saw it too. "I think he's trying to stand up," I said. "Uh, you think?"

Yeah. So. He stood up. On Friday. Now he's pulling up on everything. This afternoon, he pulled up on one of the little white kid-sized chairs in the living room; then he let go with one hand and grinned at me. And then he reached over for the ottoman, grabbed onto the ottoman and cruised right on over. On his feet.

Cruising on the furniture. Seven and a half months. For point of comparison, Barak was not even rolling over both ways at that age. I think he sat up by himself for the first time at maaaybe ten months. Iyyar did not pull to standing until he was well past one.

Barak, Iyyar, and Marika all started walking at fourteen and a half months; Avtalyon started at ten and a half.

Hmm. Maybe it's time to get that baby gate on the stairs. You think?

In other Mordechai news, I bought a new baby carrier last week (a Chibuki, if you're interested) and I love it. It's kind of a pain to get on (lots and lots and LOTS of fabric) but once it's on it's amazing. It distributes the weight so evenly over your back, shoulders and hips that you really can wear it all day; we brought the kids to the zoo last week and Mordechai was it in from 9 AM till almost 7 PM, only coming out to nurse, with no complaints. He slept really well afterward, too.

He's starting to look less like Iyyar and more like Barak, I think. Still no teeth yet; a bit more hair. He is a total flirt, and finds a new best friend any time I sit down on public transportation or anywhere else. Wants to be carried around or plunked on the floor to explore just about all the time. Still not eating any real food; I've given him some tastes of this and that but he's not interested. Still wants to nurse all night long. (Yes yes yes I know. You don't need to comment on this.)

Other non-Mordechai-related things: Iyyar in general seems to be doing better. Some days are better than others. Barak is again not doing his homework and I just got a call from his rav. Marika is talking more and more; Avtalyon is a blog entry unto himself which I will, perhaps, one day write.

Hmm

Huh. So. It's been a while, then, has it?

A lot has happened, pretty much all of it good. Short recap:

1. We moved. We now have a house, with an upstairs, a downstairs, a backyard, and a kitchen that is beyond even the raving fantasies of my kollel-apartment dreams. It's got two sinks. A billion cupboards. Space for everything. And nice floors.

2. Mordechai is seven months old. On erev Yom Kippur, he sat up by himself for the first time. Yesterday, he started to crawl, and now nothing is safe. World's fastest transition from Easy Low-Maintenance Baby to Holy Terror: achieved.

3. My in-laws are here. We haven't seen much of them--they've rented an apartment in Jerusalem and we are now in a yishuv around an hour away--but they're here, and that is nice.

4. Kids have handled the transition pretty well. Iyyar and Avtalyon (whoa, it's been so long since I wrote here I had to stop a minute and remember their blog names) are now in gan safa, which is a special-ed kindergarten setting for kids with speech issues. It's not exactly appropriate for either of them, in that Iyyar doesn't have speech issues and Avtalyon is getting over his on his own, but it's pretty amazing for the issues that Iyyar does have (in plenty) and it's certainly not hurting Avtalyon any. A 3:1 student-teacher ratio rarely does. Onsite OT,  PT and art and music therapy are what they're there for, and we have hopes that all of them will help a lot. So far, the adjustment has been a little bumpy but basically OK. The staff seem fabulous.

More detail on all the above to follow, I hope, now that I am on vacation (vacation!) for a whole week. But for now, there's the nutshell version.