I've fallen behind on all my electronic communications lately. If you know me, then you know this means things are totally out of control! My email is backed up in my inbox (sorry if I haven't replied to you), I haven't IM'd with anyone in months, and I'm awful about updating this blog.

The only thing I'm good at is reading other people's blogs, and I've had to cut way back on that in part of a multi-pronged effort to declutter my time and space and regain some peace and sanity. Also, to have time to work on some projects that are coming my way this summer.

Sometimes I think about calling it quits on this site, but then I'll read a beautiful, personal, moving blog post somewhere out there on the Internet, and it will inspire me to really make something of this, dammit. Or at least not totally shut down, not yet.

So. I started writing this post after the baby's 6-month checkup, May 30. A lot has happened since then so I'll just try to catch up on everything in a not-very-elegant fashion.

The nurse weighed (16 lbs 12 oz) and measured him (27.5 inches long, 46.5 cm head circumference). He screamed his little giant head off, as he always does -- he hates the baby scale -- but he calmed down quickly and was on his best behavior from then on.

When the doctor came into the examining room she was carrying a little tape measure and frowning at her clipboard. "I'm going to measure his head again," she said. "I think the nurse did it wrong."

She wrapped the tape around the baby's head, frowned, pursed her lips, adjusted the tape, squinted at it.

"Does someone in your family have a large head?" she asked.

Um.

"I think I might know who he got that from," I said.

Later she asked me if he was starting to babble. "Well, he doesn't babble exactly," I said. "He squawks and squeals ... and sometimes he goes pppffffffffftttt." She said that was normal.

Four days later the baby started babbling. In the strange way that babies have, he never did it before, and now he won't quit. "Diy-diy-diy-diy-diy," he says. "Yiy-diy-diy-diy-diy-diy." And the next day it will be "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." It's very cute. Sometimes if I give him a toy he hasn't seen in a while, he'll smile and start babbling at it, like he's catching up with a friend he's missed.

I recently read that after the two lower incisors, which he already has, the next teeth to come in are the upper incisors. I think they are coming in because boy has he been sleeping poorly and acting weird. They have broken through the gums and he seems to be feeling better.

You'd think that, given how avidly he watched us eat for weeks, he'd have gobbled down the solid foods as soon as they were offered. But no. He was a bit lukewarm about the actual thing. For the first two weeks he kept sticking his tongue out (a reflex that should go away soon), so that, of every tiny spoonful I give him, about a third went in his mouth.

But then one Sunday morning it was like it just clicked. He opened his mouth wide and even scraped the food off the spoon with his upper lip. Now he's eating cereal (barley and oatmeal are his favorites) and carrots (the jury is out on carrots).

To wash his food down, he loves to take sips of water from a glass, and he's gotten really good at it.

At nearly 7 months babies' personalities are starting to show, and compared to his friends, our baby is a mellow little guy. He is very happy to lie on his back playing with one toy for a long time, or just look at his toes.

He can sit up on his own without tipping over for short periods of time. I think life will be more fun for him when he masters that -- he'll be able to reach his toys and look around more. But, unlike some very active babies I know, he doesn't seem particularly interested in crawling or moving around the room. Fine by me!