Se7en

So the Manling is an unbelievably seven months old as of this past week.

He has some new skills:

• Sitting up for a long, long, time, in a galaxy far, far away. Seriously, the kid has mastered sitting. He can't get into the postion by himself, but he tries. He will try to go straight from a on-the-back position to sitting upright by contracting his abdominal muscles. He hasn't quite figured out that rolling to one side and pushing up might be easier. I just figure he'll have a great six-pack.
  
• Getting up in the dog's grill. Luckily I have acclimatized her to withstand repeated pulling of her jaw-skin, ears, tail and fur from the time we got her in preparation for this day.
  
• Scooting backwards. The Manling has now replaced any need for a Swiffer to remove said dog's shed fur from the floor. And he does an excellent job of getting the dustbunnies out from underneath the entertainment center. He does get a wee bit frustrated at not being able to move forward, but I hope that won't be for a few more weeks. I like still being able to put him down and finding him relatively where I left him after I come back from playing on Myspace or making quesadillas. Just kidding, social services!
  
• Push-ups. The Manling intuitively knows that crawling forward involves getting his belly and legs off the floor. But for some reason he believe all body parts must be off the floor at the same time. He does a sort of downward-facing dog (that's NOT the Manling) whereby only the pads of his big toes and the palms of his hands are on the ground. He will have the strongest big toes in the known universe.
• And, trumpets please: Sleeping in his own crib, in his own room! I hesitate to actually write this, but for the last few days has been doing that very thing. I tried and tried to follow the guidelines set out in Tracy Hogg's wonderful Baby Whisperer books, but I just couldn't. So instead I turned to advice given by a terrific bloggers out there: Tertia of So Close, among others. I can't say I enjoyed these last few nights, but it really seems to be working. And I'm not going into any more detail nor am I going to apologize or defend it.

The last few months have been wonderful. I can't imagine life without the Manling.