7 Months

 

I know its closer to 8 months at this point, but blogging hasn’t really been on my list of priorities right now, for a lot of reasons I don’t feel like getting into. So, here is my super belated 7 month post.

Month 7 has brought endless movement and a STRONG sense of independence, free will, and desire; she knows what she wants, when she wants it, and she will get it no matter what. As you can see by the pictures, she doesn’t sit still and refuses to lay down on her back, which means diaper changes are a nightmare every single time, and taking happy pictures laying next to the dog was not really a possibility. It took me two different days and Derek as a helper in order to get the pictures we did. We had to creative and removing the sticker, putting it on her back and letting her play with it. The good thing about the 2 different shoots is that you can see how bad her rash is in some, which we took on the 8th, and how much better it was by the 12th, when we took the rest. Her hair is looking crazy because she had lotion in it. Right now we are pretty much rash free, except for some redness in the folds of her arms, and we only have to use the steroids everyone once in a while. I’m so happy that we’ve got a routine that works, though it is tedious and difficult, it is worth it. Oh, except for now she has cradle cap. Sigh.

(This one was taken on the 12th, when she was starting to look better)

(These show off her rash…you can see how her skin was actually rough and raised, not just red)

Like I said, she is constantly on the move and spends all day standing up. She is cruising a little but is not quite sure about moving while standing up yet. She does stand now with no hands, like you saw in the other post. She crawls like crazy now. I have no idea when she started actually crawling (like on hands and knees), it seemed so seamless; one day she was army crawling and then she just wasn’t. Although, when she really wants to move,  her crawling is still some kind of hybrid between the army crawl and the real crawl. Her favorite games involve crawling into the kitchen to the get the dogs food, crawling into the kitchen just to sit in there, crawling down the hallway in an attempt to find things to get into, standing on the cooler by the kitchen and banging, getting into the recycle bin and playing with the bottles, and standing up by the desk and pulling everything off. Oh, and pulling paper towels and wipes out of the trash and then eating them. Gross. She loves all things paper for some reason; books, paper towels, diapers, wipes, everything she can get her hands on. Her favorite toys seem to be whatever mommy and daddy have, wires, remotes, cell phones, ipod and cell phone covers, laptops, and anything else she shouldn’t have.  She already takes things off the grocery store shelf and can stand up in the shopping cart (it was only two months ago that she couldn’t even sit in the shopping cart!)All the movement and the solid food means we usually get at least 10 hours of sleep from her, but it also means she really resists naps.

She officially has her two bottom teeth, though I don’t think the second one technically broke the skin until after 7 months. It is totally depressing but ridiculously cute. I miss her cute little gumless smile but this toothy smile is starting to grow on me. She hasn’t bitten me yet, so at least there is that, and we get to brush her teeth now, which is fun. Overall, she has been a really good teether, but her teeth game in SUPER fast, so I don’t know if it’ll stay that way for the rest of them (fingers crossed). When we were at her 6 month check up the doctor saw no signs of teething. For the next few weeks, she wasn’t super irritable, no fever, and no swollen gums, but all the sudden there were these little white lumps. I honestly didn’t notice until I put a finger in her mouth and felt the sharp little edge of a tooth breaking through.

She still isn’t super verbal, unless she is angry or wants something, then we hear “ehhh, ehhhhh, ehhhhhhh” until she gets what she wants. I also hear “maaaaaaaaaa maaaaaaaa” in a super whiny voice. I’m almost positive she doesn’t associate mama with me yet, but she knows it gets her attention, so she uses it. She also wails when you take something away from her. Yay for new stages! When she is happy we get a lot of gruggles and razzes, but not too much actual babbling, unless she is alone in her crib, then she is all chit chatty. She smiles and laughs so much more often now. I swear she must smile more than any other baby and it still melts my heart every time. She loves giving the dog treats and laughs when he is trying to take it. Consequently, the dog has been getting a lot more treats.

We’ve started introducing even more food and have given her pears, peaches, and green squash, in addition to all the things she had before. Fruits made her diaper changes much more frequent, so I think we’re going to have to start rotating one fruit to every two veggies. I’ve also started giving her puffs and rice cakes to chew on. She hasn’t really taken to the puffs yet. I don’t know if it’s because she hasn’t quite gotten the pincher grip down yet and has a hard time getting them in her mouth after she picks them up, but she is slowly getting the hang of it. The dog is enjoying her failures. She loves the mum-mum rice cakes; it took awhile for her to get the hang of eating them, but now she eats the whole thing in like 5 seconds.

My little love is less of a baby and more of a little person every single day. She is definitely a mover and super physical; sitting still and reading is not her style right now. Her facial expressions are constantly changing and there is a new one every other minute. She is also super social, loves going out and seeing people and new things. She is super curious and wants to touch everything. She stares at new things and you can just see her little brain working. I kind of miss my little cuddle bug that couldn’t move, but I do love all the new things getting bigger and stronger has brought our way.