Month 7

Who knew it would be such a challenge to update a blog once a month when you are able to keep a little baby clean, fed, and in safe hands each and every day.  I've been procrastinating posting on the 7th month, but realized today on my way home from work how much (not to mention how often) I enjoyed going back and reading the posts from the first week of her life all the way through 6 months so far.  So in order to make this a digital diary of sorts I am back on the bandwagon and am here to tell you about Ellie's month 7.  Months 5-7 have been my favorites by far if I haven't mentioned that already.  She shows her personality in each and everything she does.  She is super laid back, but isn't afraid to tell us what she wants.  She is making all sorts of noises.  Ba (we think for "Bo") and Dadadadada (close enough to Daddy in our books) are her most common words.  She has this other fascinating noise that is a mix of a grunt, squeal, and yell with a smile that indicates she wants something.  We hear it when she wants another bite, when she wants to be picked up, when she is uncomfortable, or when she wants out of the bath.  She is quite vocal and if she could say words she'd already be bossing us around I'm sure.  Jeff says she's already a talker just like her mom.  Aside from talking she is also developing daily.  She can go from sitting to laying on her tummy perfectly.  She loves to sit up in her crib and play with her paci and smile in the camera.  Her newest trick is to pull herself up in the crib or on the play table.  So far she only does it when we aren't paying much attention... when we watch, she does her grunt, yell, squeal smile for us to help her into the standing position.  My prediction is that by the end of the month she will be pulling up on her own on everything.  And if I was a betting woman, I'd guess she's going to be an early walker, maybe around 10 months.  She is so determined, focused, and doesn't like to be sedentary for one second.  As for eating, she does mashed bananas, avocados, all the puree foods and loves the rice cakes (long wafer looking ones, the name has slipped my mind).  We've tried some puffs, yogurt melts (bad choking memory for mom so we are staying away from those for a bit), and cheerios and she doesn't seem quite ready to eat those or maybe its just us that isn't ready for her to eat them since we can't relax yet while she's eating.  I don't have weight/height percentile, but I can promise you that she is growing like a weed.  In fact she has already outgrown her 9 month PJs and is ready for 12 month ones.  She's growing entirely too fast.  Jeff and I were astonished to find out that 12 months (at Carter's at least) is in a different section than newborn to 9 months.  We were having trouble finding 12 month PJs and the employee at Carter's had to redirect us to the 12-24 month section.  Wow.... too big for me.  Maybe we'll keep squeezing her into the 9 months a little bit longer so I don't have to openly admit my baby is growing up.

Here are a few pictures for 7 months.  Sweet girl had a cold and/or was teething so these aren't the happiest of pictures.  She still looks cute even without a smile :).