Eat, Sleep and BE HAPPY

I am happy to report that Kai is already eating SO MUCH BETTER!  I can't believe how quick he responded.  The first night I gave him squash he only got about 3 or so bites in and most of it was spit back out.  I was gradually able to get him to eat almost half squash and half fruit.  I have now moved on to green beans and his first day with green beans was better than his first day on squash. 
Meal time has become a lot less stressful for me and him.  I think letting him make choices on what he wants to eat really helped and then me offering him a little bit of something new without over doing it.  He oddly enough will shake his head "no" when he is done eating.  I really have no idea where he learned it but it has been very helpful.  I think the respect I have shown to him by giving him what he prefers has reciprocated in him showing respect to me by trying something new.  Now I know some of you think that is probably crazy, how can a 7 month old show respect...well I think it is possible!
My friend who gave me ideas of how to get him to eat better also told me to expose him to different textures like rice, beans, mud, grass, sand and so on.  I tried rice the first day and he seem disgusted; he would touch it then quickly pull his arm back and start to spit.  It was pretty cute.  I think this has helped a ton, as he is now more wiling to try hard finger foods.  Whenever he shows interest in what I am eating I will give him a taste.  For the most part he will like it until he gets a chunk of something.  But gradually he seems to not mind it.  I was able to get him to eat an apple cinnamon puff today for the first time, and he loved it!  I am looking forward to him improving his eating habits and I hope we can continue to move forward.
As far as sleeping goes, it started out really good.  The first time he cried for 25 minutes, the next time only about 10 minutes and then after that he would fall asleep under a minute of me laying him down.  The third day was the worst.  He would cry for 30 minutes, fall asleep and in mid sleep he would wake up and begin crying again.  Since that third day he hasn't been able to get a full nap in...but he has been sleeping all night long again ever since the first night we let him cry it out, which has been great!  Our past few days have been different than normal so his schedule has been thrown off, next week I will be watching 3 other children and the week after that we are going to California...so I don't foresee the sleeping being mastered very soon, but we have our start and I am happy with getting my full nights back.