7 Months!!!

Talia is 7 months old today, and is just awesome!

Talia one month ago!

Talia yesterday!  Our girl loves her nature walks, and her papa!

Tali is GROWING!!! We have had a couple weigh ins, and last Thursday she was up to 14 pounds 12 ounces, which out her just about in the 15th percentile!  So since the end of Novemeber she has gained nearly 4 pounds and climbed her way up from the 3rd percentile, and we are just so so pleased!  We are only giving her an extra bottle occasionally, so I seem to have gotten my supply up well enough to be doing most of the gaining from our nursing! Yay!!!! 

Other exciting things:

*This girl is a roller! Back to front, front to back, and starting to figure out how to turn around on her tummy.  No signs of crawling yet, which I'm really looking forward to.  I think it will help ease her frustration levels to be able to get around on her own!

She can sit up on her own extremely well.  She can usually catch her balance if she starts to fall, though not always, and that has led to some tears, but no real bumps.  She's starting to figure out how to go from sitting to her tummy.

Mirrors are her favorite toy by far! She loves looking at herself and babbling away!  So cute!

Eating solid foods!  Though we are currently battling another bout of constipation, she LOVES eating!  She's tried rice cereal, baby oatmeal, avocado, sweet potato, peas, bananas, and tonight prunes!  On the menu this week is applesauce (homemade by her daddy over the summer from our own apples!) and spinach, and if I'm feeling adventurous, beets!  She loves grabbing the spoon to feed herself, and is starting to understand "more" and "all done" when we sign them.

She's waving bye bye, and will sign nurse while I'm breastfeeding her!  She doesn't seem to sign to ask for milk yet, but it doesn't seem far off!

We took her swimming for the first time yesterday!  She wasn't exactly thrilled with it, and was very clingy, but was starting to loosen up a bit by the time we were done. The pool was pretty chilly, so that didn't help!  But we got a 10 punch pass, so we will be back to try again soon!  Doesn't she look so adorable in her little swimsuit?!

She loves reading still!  Kevin reads her a few stories before bed every night, and she just loves it!  I've been letting her playground with books a lot during the day, she's always so happy to touch the pages and babble away!

She can sit in the grocery cart!

 

Sleep continues to be a mystery!  She's fairly consistently sleeping through the night, which is awesome and amazing!  And by that I mean upwards of 12 hours straight a lot of nights!  However, she continues to be really difficult to put down some nights, screaming for really long stretches, nothing consoling her!  She also is still a terribly napper.  She almost always only sleeps 30 minutes at a time, but occasionally  will sleep for an hour or an hour and a half, with no rhyme or reason!  So we still have to do 3 to 4 naps a day just to get her through to bedtime, and she fights most of them for 30-40 minutes!  So I'm experimenting with having her stay awake a bit longer to see if that stretches the naps out any.  So far, no consistency! :)

She is talking up a storm!  Her main babble is "a dah" which we joke is her exclaiming "hot dog!"  She also loves clicking her tongue, and shrieking!  Still pretty discerning on the giggle front, but they are coming more and more easily.

She's been pretty clingy with me lately, which has been a little trying at times!  I set her down and she immediately starts sobbing, or if Kevin is holding her, she's fine if I'm not in the room, but will fuss if I am in her sight until I take her.  Which is tough on Kevin!!  So we are working on making her be okay with other people!  We had some friends babysit her last weekend and they said she was a perfect angel, so that was a relief!  They have a baby exactly one day and one minute younger than her, so it was great to let her have a play date without us there!!

She loves peek-a-boo, and nursery rhymes with hand gestures.  And singing!  We listen to music all day and dance around, and love doing story time at the library, which is mostly songs!

What can I say, she's awesome, and we are so glad she came to live with us!

Solids!

We introduced Talia to solid foods the day after Christmas.  It's going really well with the exception of some digestive issues!  So far, she's tried rice cereal, avocado, sweet potato, and oatmeal.  True to her roots, avocado is far and away her favorite so far!

Getting ready for her first bite!

She ate up her rice cereal the first day, but her interest in it seems to be waning with each new food.  It also blocked her up pretty well, so her doctor suggested we switch to oatmeal.  We tried it this morning and she loves it! Just like her daddy!

I'm so excited to be introducing new flavors  and textures to her, and giving her a first step toward independent eating.  I hope we are able to raise an adventurous eater, and that she has a healthy relationship with food.  

On that note, we had her 6 month check up on Tueaday, and besides those wicked shots, it was such a great visit!  She is now 14 pounds 3 oz, which is the 12th percentile, and 26 inches which I think was near 50th percentile.  This was her best 2 week weight gain, and I haven't been on fenugreek or pumping nearly as much, so that was super!  We are going to continue with 2 week weight checks at least another month, and then hopefully feel good enough to drop down to once a month.  We were both really anxious about this one because she hadn't been pooping much and was sleeping long stretches at night like when she didn't put in any weight a couple months ago.  We give her an extra bottle from my freezer stash every couple days, so we were hopeful it was enough, but have some PTSD about the whole thing!  We will continue to offer her an extra bottle every couple days, or when she's super cranky.  I have about 20 more bags in the freezer, so that should get us through to the 7th month before we would need to switch to formula.  What an emotional roller coaster this has all been!

Mmm sweet potato!

We got a little messy with the avocado!

It's so interesting trying to balance making sure she is getting enough milk with making sure she developes good eating habits!  On the one hand, we are so encouraging of her guzzling down whatever, but on the other hand we don't want to ruin her natural abilities to say she's full.  I hope we can come to a more comfortable place soon.  At the very least, we are giving her wonderful, organic, nutritious foods now, and will always encourage an active and healthy lifestyle.  I just have so many fears and built up anxiety that she will struggle with her weight as I have.  But ( smacks self upside the head!) she's only 6 months old and we are doing fine and she is amazing and wonderful, and good gravy is she ever beautiful! :)

In a couple days I think we will try some carrots and then maybe spinach!  We are holding off on fruit a bit just to make sure she doesn't start favoring the sweet stuff too early!  I have some pears and a tiny bottle of baby prunes on hand for emergencies though! :)

In other exciting news, she finally figured out how to roll from back to front a couple days ago, and good golly she is on the move now!  I set her in the living room this morning while I was making my breakfast, and I came back in to find she had rolled clear across the room!!  And now she is rolling basically everytime I set her down, which makes diaper changes challenging, to say the least! 

What, did you think I was just gonna lie here when there are slats to play with?!

Baby-proofing, here we come!