7 months!

Little Chloe turned 7 months old on the 7th and I’m just now getting around to writing her update.  Not too much has changed since her 6 month update, but she’s definitely learning and growing every day!

I weighed her on a home scale last week (weighed myself and then weighed me holding her) and she weighed 18.8 pounds.  I’m not sure how accurate that is, but there’s no doubt that she’s packing on the pounds.  I swear she gets longer every day.

• Food:  She is doing great with Baby-Led Weaning.  Just in the past week or two she’s started really eating instead of simply inspecting her food.  She still isn’t eating a lot but she’s getting the hang of it.  So far she has had: banana (not a fan), sweet potato, apple, peach, pear, orange, melon, green pepper, brocolli, asparagus, spinach, kale, onion, tofu, greek yogurt, blueberry (her favorite), raspberry, strawberry, cheerios, puffs, lentil stew, soup beans, cornbread, mushrooms, toast with hummus, scrambled egg yolks, potatoes…and a few more that I’ve forgotten.  Her pincher grip is awesome now so she can eat small things now which makes it much easier for her to swallow.  BLW is exceptionally messy though!  Here are some pictures of the aftermath:

• Sleep:  We recently, like…last week…dealt with what I’m now certain was a combination of a sleep regression and teething.  Girl would not sleep.  She was up more than she had been since her first couple weeks of life and wasn’t interested in going back to sleep.  Thankfully, I think it has subsided.  The past three nights have been back to “normal.”  Bed between 7-7:30, up between 4:30-5, back to sleep until 6:30ish.
• Naps:  Naps are still touch and go.  I’ve accepted the fact that my baby doesn’t take long naps.  I read about all of these Mother’s who have babies that take 2 hour naps during the day.  What?!  I’ll occasionally get an hour out of her but most of the time its 30-45 minutes.  She still naps at 9, 12 and 3:15.
• Breastfeeding:  Still going strong.  I have to say that I’m really proud that we’ve been able to keep it up for this long.  My goal was to make it to one year and we’re over halfway there.  We still haven’t decided how long we’re going to continue after that, but we’ll see.  It just depends on how interested she is at that point.  I have officially stopped pumping though.  Chloe never took a bottle and it was just getting frustrating.  Right now she’s just drinking water from her sippy cup, but eventually, we’ll try to get her to drink breastmilk out of it.  Then almond milk.  And then we haven’t decided if we’re going to do cow’s milk at all…. oh the woes of being semi-hippies (me) and crazy paranoid about chemicals (Hunter).
• Teeth: She has her two bottom front ones and they are adorable.  She’s currently working on the top two on and off.  Hopefully they’ll come through soon.  Teething is no fun for anyone.
• Mobility:  She can finally roll both ways.  Tummy to back and back to tummy.  She’s figured out that she can roll to get things, but rarely does it.  She’s gotten up on all fours a few times but honestly, she seems content to sit and play.  I see all these 6 month olds that are crawling and I get paranoid that she’s behind, but I know that every baby develops differently and I need to cherish this time because soon I’ll be chasing her all over the house.

Likes: Removing each toy from her basket one by one, cell phones of any kind (but iphones are the best), running with Mommy in the jogging stroller, drinking water out of her sippy cup, plastic cups, still loves Sophie the Giraffe, music, music by Fun, Gotye, Adele, Rihanna, etc,. (all of this much to her Father’s chagrin…I need to start playing a lot of classical stuff during the day so that he’s happy), being outside, rolling around, baths, yogurt, blueberries, when Daddy comes home, watching people brush their teeth, dogs (Dixie particularly), cats (Charlie), puffs.

Dislikes:  Getting her diaper changed, putting on clothes, going to bed, her 3:15 nap, being by herself for more than .2 seconds, getting wiped down after meals.

I have a great video of her giggling but can’t figure out how to post it into this (any wordpress users who can help me out??). But here are some pictures from the past few weeks:

Ready to run!

Hanging out at Stir Fry

Babbling Away

I apologize for the lack of blogging, but WordPress was acting crazy and wouldn’t work.  Everything seems to be back in order today.  I know you were all very thankful biting your fingernails in anticipation of my next post.

Things have been going on as usual around here.  Chloe’s nap schedule seems to be more solid and she’s made some fun developments over the weekend.  

She is now “speaking” in “syllables.”  Dadada, nanana, yayaya, and ray (?) have been flowing out of her mouth abundantly.  I guess this means that Hunter and Nana won that bet.  These aren’t her first words, though, right??  Obviously she doesn’t actually associate anything with them.  

She’s also rolling over all the time now.  But only to the left and only back to tummy.  I really wish she would learn to roll tummy to back so the screaming when on her tummy would stop.  

Also, she insists on putting herself to sleep at night.  It’s actually really funny because everyone was so adamant that I was creating a bad habit and spoiling her by rocking her to sleep all the time.  She decided that she was ready and is very serious about it.  I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me a little bit sad.  But my selfish cuddling agenda aside, I know this is a very important (and helpful) development.

She’s really like a little person now.  Jibber jabbing away and letting me know what she wants.  She’s becoming really interested in watching us while we eat, which means she’s getting ready for solid food!  I’m going to try and hold off until 6 months, but I’m excited to watch her experience real food.

Here are some pictures from the past few days:

She seems to have rekindled her love for Mr. Caterpillar.

Loves sitting in the recliner and eating the remote!

Hunter was trying to get a picture of her leg rolls.

She crosses her legs just like her Daddy.

Party. My Room. 2 AM. BYOB.

Needless to say, last night was not a win in the sleep department.  Chloe was up from 2-5:30 having a grand old time.  It makes no sense to me because she isn’t fussy or hungry…just awake and making lots of funny baby sounds.  Hunter and I laid in the bed and laughed about it for about 10 minutes.  Then it wasn’t funny anymore.  I would get up when she did start crying, try to get her to go back to sleep and then crawl back in the bed.  Five minutes (at the most) later, baby yells were coming down the hall.

I have no clue what’s going on.  Right now, in fact, she’s upstairs rolling around in her crib.  Not sleeping.  I feel like I’m probably in for another long night.  Maybe she’s a superhuman who doesn’t need sleep?  She wasn’t excessively fussy today, thank goodness.  But how do I get her to figure out that Mommy is a lot more fun when she is well rested?

Alas, I’m going to put on my big girl pants and stop complaining.  She’s cute so she can get away with…well, anything.

I’m going to go try to get her to go to bed and cross my fingers that I have time (and energy) to write an blog post tomorrow that is actually interesting.

Moms:  Do you think this could be teething?  Or some milestone?  She isn’t fussy when she wakes up but has started chewing on everything in sight.  Help!

The Sleepy Baker

Our weekend was spent like most others–sleeping, crying, going for walks, grocery shopping, cuddling, pooping…some of us more than others.

Guilty.

Chloe is still trying her hardest to roll over.  She got her shoulders over yesterday but wouldn’t kick her leg to get the rest of her body over.  I actually think she is perfectly capable of doing it, but hates tummy time so much that she refuses to self-inflict such pain and suffering.  We’ll see.  Every time she almost gets there we hover over her with the camera.  Maybe we’re freaking her out with our enthusiasm.

Today has been full of a lot of this:

and this:

For about 4 hours today, she’s wanted to eat on one side, sleep, wake up crying, eat, sleep, etc,.   Either she had a party last night without us knowing or is hitting a growth spurt.  Or maybe the cold weather made her want to be lazy?  Anyway, there has been a lot of sleeping.  She’s asleep now, in fact.

In between sleeping, we have baked.  We made fig newtons a la Eat, Live, Run and blueberry walnut bread a la Daily Garnish. Chloe is a great cooking partner.  I can just throw her in the Moby wrap and go at it.  She likes to watch my hands and the mixer as we go and anything with color (like blueberries) fascinate her.  I hope that as she gets older she still enjoys cooking with me (and hopefully she won’t inherit my Mom’s ability to burn the bread 🙂 ).