A Whopping 7 Months Already!

            Alethea is getting closer and closer to completing her first year here with us and she is changing so much every day.  She is getting so big!  Her most recent in home measurements are 17lbs 3.2oz (50^th percentile) and 28.5in (97^th+ percentile).  I can’t believe how long she is getting; she gets too long for clothes before she even has a chance to fill them out.

Blogger won't put her 7 month photo the right way so this cute picture will have to do :-)

Our little girl is quite the go getter.  She is definitely not in the blob stage anymore, actually quite the opposite.  She has been creeping for over a month now and she is definitely a pro at that.  She has officially explored almost every inch of the first floor of our house.  You look away for a second and she is already off to the races to get into something fun (usually something she isn’t supposed to).  The day before she turned 7 months she finally discovered real crawling, so now she combines crawling and creeping depending on what she feels like doing.

Gotta love my mobile cutie!

This month she has learned to sit up from a crawling position.  I thought that was exciting enough, but she decided that wasn’t enough for her.  For the last almost 2 weeks she has been pulling up to a standing position all on her own.  This girl is so stinkin’ strong and wants to be in to everything!  She is even beginning to walk a bit along things and fairly easily (though slowly) makes transfers from object to object.  Love it! 

"Helping" with laundry

"Look Ma, I got the diapers"

All of this mobility is definitely exciting, even if it does take a bit more work to keep up with her these days.  However, it does come with the injuries of her daredevilness.  For the most part we have just seen minor bumps and bruises.  Unfortunately, this past week Alethea got her first real injury from a fall.  She loves to stand up…sit down…stand up….sit down on the bottom of our tall kitchen chairs.  And in the transition she lost her balance and ended up hitting the bar with the side of her head/eye.  She screamed her head off for a bit, bled some and cuddled lots and then she was right back at it again.  Such fun, but I think these accidents are going to get more frequent. J

She got in a fight with the base of the chair

But she had no problem getting right back up again :-)

Alethea has continued to get into solid foods.  We have been working with her schedule to figure out when is best to feed her and I think we finally figured it out this past week and she has been loving her solid foods.  She is up to 3 meals a day and eating like a champ for the past week.  This month she has tried butternut squash, sweet potato, rice cereal, oatmeal, avocado, apples, pears, green beans, prunes, and plums.  We probably would have been able to introduce more, but we have struggled with the food allergy issues.  She breaks out with a rash from rice cereal and we are waiting for the rash to clear up to confirm whether or not butternut squash is an allergen or not. Thankfully she enjoys most all of her solids, however green beans and oatmeal have to be mixed with her fruits in order for her to be interested.

Messy face!

She loves her cup too!

A few other new things this month are that she is definitely aware with Mommy is gone and she makes sure that everyone is aware she is not happy about it.  We are working on that issue and she has actually improved over the past week or so.  It is quite entertaining to see how her cries are morphing to try to communicate how she feels.  She has also discovered that she can crawl behind the couch just like the pups.  Thankfully after getting stuck back there the first time, she has realized she can crawl all the way around and out the other side. 

"Help Mommy, I don't know how to get out from behind here!"

We hit a big milestone this month with her night time feeding as well.  Up until this month, she had not eating her final feeding anywhere but home so we were pretty much limited to having to be home by 7:30 every night.  In order to be able to attend the Darby’s birthday party and a home group get together, we had to change this and thankfully she did great.  She took her bottle like a pro and then came home and went to sleep great just as always.  We even got home at 9 one night and she went to bed without any issues.  This new freedom has definitely come in handy for Mommy and Daddy.

Still enjoying pool time with her buddies!

She loves to play in the fridge :-)

She has also become more intentional with her vocalizations and it almost seems at times that she is trying to tell us something.  Her vocalizations have shifted from mostly cries to now she says “bah bah bah bah” and “mmmmah mah mah mah”.  So cute and I love seeing just how expressionate she has become with her “words” and facial expressions.

                So much fun watching her change this past month.  So many exciting things to share.  We are looking forward to seeing what the next month brings and we are falling in love with this little girl more and more each day.  (Hard to believe that is even possible!)

Visiting her daddy at work and he let her "drive"