Happy 7 Months Audrey!

My precious little girl is 7 months old! She actually turned 7 months last week but it was such a crazy busy week planning for my sister's baby shower and me feeling sick and Audrey barely sleeping that blogging just was not on the agenda. I was in survival mode. Somehow I did survive but there were many days I wasn't sure I was going to make it.

Yet here I am ready to tell you how Audrey has grown. She seems to have made a big leap in the past month in terms of mental and physical maturity. She is very mobile now though not yet crawling. That is not far off I suspect. She has been rolling back and forth all over the place and I can't leave her for very long because she will find her way under the couch or on the other side of the room. She was starting to roll both ways but has only really started consistently a couple weeks ago. We were at my mom's for a few days and she has a big living room area where Audrey was able to practice her new skill. She can sit up now on her own and tries to get on her hands and knees from the sitting position. A couple times she actually stayed on her hands and knees for a bit but usually just plops back on her tummy. Recently she has been finding ways to maneuver herself across the floor to get to a toy. It's very funny to watch.

She is also very alert. She stares at things and people and new places for long periods and I wonder what is going on inside her head. We were at the doctor yesterday and she hadn't grown much in weight since a couple months ago but has grown 2 inches in height. She is going to be tall like her father...and I will feel super short between the two of them but Ovi is excited about her prospective sporting abilities.

She has been eating some solids. So far just carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. I pureed them and am almost done with the batch. She still doesn't like them all that much but she eats them more easily when she sees me eat. Now I understand why her pediatrician told us to put her at the table with us when I feed her. She learns through imitation. When I try to put the spoon in her mouth, she grabs onto it and pulls it into her mouth after she has seen me put something in my mouth. It's so fascinating the way they develop. I'm trying to let her hold the spoon and experiment with putting it in her mouth on her own. I does get messy but I think it's important for her to feel she has some control. I also don't want her to have any bad associations with meal time. I have also been trying to incorporate some baby-led weaning ideas. I gave her a half of a steamed carrot to chew on and she liked it. She didn't really eat any of it but she really liked sucking on it. I sometimes bit off a piece and chewed it a bit and put it in her mouth and she ate some that way. I'm slowly working up to giving her pieces to put in her mouth but it still makes me nervous so I'm taking it slow.

I'm also happy to report that after a gruesome week of waking up multiple times in the night and not going back to sleep, Audrey is sleeping through the night again this week. He bedtime is about 6:30 pm and she sleeps until about 6-7am. Sometimes she wakes up around 5 but that's only been once this week =). It's an early bedtime as everyone keeps telling me but I've had to keep moving it up as she just gets so tired by the end of the day. She just needs more sleep than the average baby. She still takes about 3 naps a day, sometimes a fourth if she's extra tired and has had short naps all day but that's more rare now.

Now the next step is to try and start teaching her sign language so she can communicate before she can talk. It may be a few months before she signs back but I think now is a good time to start.