Seven months!

We are on our own this weekend {help!} while Michael is out of town at a wedding...so let's see what this past month has brought us.

Not the clearest picture but none of the ones I took today were lacking blurriness; this baby loves to move! And shout! And squeal!! And kick her legs!!

How old: seven months.

Weight: maybe somewhere near 17 pounds? She was about 16 a month ago and scale visits here at home have shown not a whole lot of growth, though our scale can be erratic and  she certainly feels heavier to me so maybe around 17 is what I’ll say.

Likes:

• People; Hanna Lu is almost always enthralled with the other people who ride the elevator with us and is totally impressed by any other small child…so observant!
• Sweet potatoes!
• Her oatmeal, mixed with milk though tonight she had it with water since there was no milk on hand {I had frozen everything that was in the fridge}.
• Crawling! This kid is everywhere…she’s showing signs of maybe wanting to pull herself up but for now she’s army crawling all over the place. She gets up on her hands and knees all the time and can even move a few paces this way but she hasn’t quite perfected it. Sometimes she sticks up her bum when she’s on her hands and knees. Hanna will also be on her hands and knees and kind of go down/turn to one side which puts her legs in this funny position but she does it when she wants to sit a bit and look at/play with something.
• Sticking thing in her mouth. This past week she started getting her fist in there but in a funny back and forth in/out sort of way which makes a really cute “blaaabba blaabba” sound.
• Creaking like an old door and babbling {dadadadadada…}.
• Playing in her toy/play area {& she just recently starting trying to pull up and chew on the edges of the alphabet/number mat…but when she wants attention from us she starts crawling towards us.
• She still enjoys hanging out in her exersaucer but for shorter periods of time since she really loves moving around on the floor.
• Guinness the dog; he can elicit a laugh basically by just walking past her. She also appreciates grabbing onto his fur but we try to circumvent that behavior.
• Her new crib. We help her get into a standing position while holding onto the railing and she loves that vantage point. It’s got a much softer mattress than her pack n’ play and her sleep hasn’t changed, though it hasn’t been stellar since returning from California anyway.
• Our building’s play room; there’s not much for her age but there are some toys and when we take her there she makes a hilarious series of breathy-oh-my-gosh-so-much-to-see noises.
• Other kids; being at daycare has really fueled this. On the swings yesterday Hanna was staring at the toddler next to her…what a creepy stalker baby!
• And her new daycare; woo hoo! This new lady is super warm and bubbly and Hanna Lu seems to really enjoy her which makes me feel good.
• Swinging! Hanna’s grandma and Zaide took her to the park on their last visit and we went again yesterday so the kid doesn’t have much swing experience but gosh golly she was THRILLED with it last night.
• Grab-scratching onto things; my chest, the couch, my face, her dad’s face, our arms…so mostly her parents’ bodies? This is painful with her little talons.

Dislikes:

• Getting her nose cleared out; we’ve had a bit of congestion here today and this morning she couldn’t eat because she couldn’t breathe from her nose so I used the thing we have to clear out congestion. It wasn’t the first time but it was the first time she really needed it {& still does, she totally sounds gooped up still} and Hanna Lu is not happy afterwards.
• When daddy gets her dressed; she seems to scream just for him – she doesn’t love the process but little bit makes it much harder on her daddy.
• Teething; we had a rough weekend last week before chomper number two made its appearance; this weekend has been better so far but for the unrelated congestion.

Milestones:

• Can sit unassisted though topples over if she gets excited and moves too much.
• Has taken some baths sitting up!
• Has teeth!

Sleep and eat:

• Sleeping has struggled a bit in the past two weeks thanks to our cross-country trip, teething, and the recent snottyness…still not too bad {one to two night wakings} in a 12 hour period but not as good as before. Still, we can’t complain.
• Hanna still eats/drinks mostly milk but will have oatmeal two to three times a day and one or two “meals” {along with the oatmeal} of food – roasted  veggies, banana, avocado, plain roasted chicken breast, and toast are all things she has enjoyed so far. I’m having some trouble coming up with more food to give her since we’re not really doing purees. The whole “Baby Led Weaning” {“weaning” meaning “to eat food other than breastmilk/formula” rather than wean off of milk completely} touts just giving baby what we’re eating but we never have enough left overs and it seems a bit much for her so young, though tons of people do it so we’ll see. Up new for this week: cucumbers {raw and in spears} and butternut squash {roasted and in spears}.
• The babe is still a difficult milk drinker. At her six-month appointment I asked about a possible posterior tongue tie. Weeks and weeks of a baby who doesn’t love eating/drinking and daycare providers who ask about it and I’m much more resigned to our lot with this infant but still super curious and sometime in August I started to wonder about a tongue tie, though I can’t remember what prompted that. Hanna’s pediatrician checked it out and said there might be but gave us a referral to an ENT person for little humans. Each time I call to make an appointment, though, no one answers and none of my messages have been returned. Lame. The baby seems to enjoy eating food just fine but if we plan to nurse/bottle feed until at least a year old that’s still a good chunk of time and if there’s something we could do to make the process easier, oh my goodness I’d be all for it. There’s been nothing quite as frustrating in my life as when the baby doesn’t want to eat.

Miscellaneous:

• We had a great time visiting California very briefly which made us only that much more excited about going home for Christmas to visit both the Golden State and Arizona; we certainly miss our families out here.
• Hanna Lu is wearing mostly size six-month clothes, though she can fit into some three-month things {they’re just short on her}, but not many. We haven’t tried any nine-month things yet, but I have them all washed and they actually look like they’d fit her but I just haven’t attempted it.
• In disposables little miss is wearing size three and probably will for a long time, though she wears cloth diapers 100% of the time; we just did the disposables for our big trip. I haven’t decided yet if we’ll take them along at Christmas. I brought them this past summer for our long trip and two weeks feels like a long enough time to validate bringing them, even with a transfer between California and Arizona in the mix. They take up suitcase space, obviously, but I hate buying so many disposables. We also started using flushable liners in the cloth diapers which make for easier clean-up; since Hanna’s eating food now and not just milk, her dirty diapers are no longer water-soluble and need to be worked on a bit before putting them in the wash – the liners are incredible and make things really easy and since they’re biodegradable I don’t feel so guilty.
• I’ve been curious about baby shoes since I see other babies of a similar age sporting them and we have a few we got as gifts; they are all massive on her and earlier today at the mall I checked out sizes and I think our child has freakishly small feet. I’d love to get her a pair of cute little baby moccasins and the tiniest size fit her nicely but I think I should get the next size up with the assumption she’ll grow those feet at least a wee bit.