7 Months!

Nate at 7 months: Not crawling yet, but oh so close. I think he could do it if he wanted to, but he still prefers the army crawl as his mode of transportation. He gets up on his hands and knees all the time and will move forward a bit, but then he drops to his tummy. He's starting to climb up on things a little bit. He also puts himself in a side-sitting position all the time. He can't quite straighten his back up yet. He squeals and yells all the time when he's playing on the floor, it's pretty funny:

Recent pics of the cutie pie...

Every once in awhile Luke decides he wants to hold Nate. Guess he just wants a little bonding time. He talks to Nate all time, it's pretty funny to watch. He gets toys for him: "here Nate, you play with this", or gives him warnings, "No, Nate don't go over to the heater". He's my little watch dog, making sure Nate's not getting into something he's not supposed to. And Nate always pays attention to Luke whenever he's talking to him. He definitely loves his big bro!

Okay, this next stuff is me venting for my own purposes, so if you might want to skip over this next stuff. I love Nate like crazy, but if I'm totally honest, I'm pretty frustrated. I'm so tired of the constant sleep battles. He is incredibly stubborn. I went through it with Luke and it was pretty miserable and it's really hard with Nate because, I don't get any naps anymore, so I'm sleep deprived and totally irritable. As I'm writing this Nate is up in his crib crying because he wants to be done with his nap, however he only slept for a half hour and never took his first nap this morning. I don't know if it's me or the kids, but both boys hated going down for naps and would not take long ones either. I let him cry in his crib all the time till he falls asleep, but he still doesn't get it. Anytime I feel like I make any progress with it, we have a day (like today) which basically just takes us back to square one. It makes me crazy when I hear other people talk about how their babies take one to two hour naps and sleep through the night. What am I doing wrong???? I thought I would have it figured out by now, but clearly I don't. I'm so tired and irritable, I just want to have a full nights sleep for once without one of the kids waking me up! I hate listening to him cry and unfortunately, I have to hear it a lot. When I can't take it anymore, I walk him around to put him to sleep (or back to sleep). I will say it's pretty hilarous to listen to his tired sounds. He just groans and "aahs" while he's in my arms. I guess it's his way of trying to cheer me up. Having children is supposed to light up your life, but most days I feel pretty miserable. I know this will pass and eventually he'll have to figure it out (Luke eventually did - for the most part). I'm just pretty bummed that I'm not really enjoying this "precious time" - if that's what you'd call it. That being said, I love you Nate, and I wouldn't trade you for the world, and if you read this someday just remember that lack of sleep makes people REALLY grumpy!