7 Months Old

Today you are 7 months old!  You are becoming more and more interactive all the time and we can't believe how grown up you seem.

You are now a graduate of Mommy's Rollover Boot Camp.  At your 6 month doctor's appointment, Dr. Nourmand told me that when babies aren't rolling over by 6 months she usually sends them to physical therapy.  I didn't like this.  I was just sure you could do it, you just hadn't shown any interest in going anywhere.  She agreed to give me a little more time to work with you and we started immediately.  I would get down on the floor with you at least twice a day and do everything I could to encourage you to roll over, hoarding toys out of your reach and physically using my hands to show you how to do it.  Daddy and I agreed that you were absolutely capable of doing it, you just didn't have the motivation.  When we would get you started, you would roll 90% of the way on your own.  Finally, on October 2, exactly two weeks after your doctor's appointment we were laying on the floor and you took your sweet little time, but after about 5 minutes, you did it!  It was a couple of days before you rolled again, but once you did it a few times on your own you realized you like this little bit of freedom and now you are a rolling fanatic.

So far you still only roll back to tummy and not tummy to back, but I still consider it success.  Now you're so proud of your new skill that you roll over just as soon as we set you down so you're spending lots of time on your tummy.  You're figuring out how to wiggle around enough to get some things out of reach and a few times I've even seen you scoot yourself backwards a little bit.  It's scary to think you could be crawling soon, but you're seeming more and more mobile every day.

We have started introducing fruits, and to my great disappointment, you were totally NOT into them at first.  You would make a sour face and shake your head from side to side like you were saying "no" and proceed to tight lip me when I offer the spoon for any additional bites.  I suspect that the sour face is a result of the citric acid (or other similar ingredient) added to keep fruit from turning brown.  After failing on apples, bananas, pears, and prunes, I finally caved and tried giving you fresh bananas mixed with a little breastmilk, and that totally worked.  So we eat a lot of bananas as I continue to try other new brands and new fruits.  We've had big wins with Plum Organics mango and peach so I'm certain we're headed in the right direction.

On the subject of fruits, on one of the first days you started them I was holding a spoonful of applesauce out for you and out of nowhere you dove at the spoon and got an eyeful of applesauce.  I felt terrible.  I could literally see applesauce in your eyeball.  This is the only time I can remember actually encouraging you to cry, with hopes that it would flush out your eye.  For the next several hours I was still cleaning out applesauce from your eyelashes as it all worked itself out.  Then wouldn't you know it, that very same day, you did the exact same thing at dinner with your squash.  This time wasn't quite so bad.  It was on your eye lid and lashes, but none actually made it in the eye and you didn't even seem all that bothered by it.  After that I learned to stay on high alert and adopted a new method of sneaking the spoon in from the bottom and that seems to have helped.

You have long been fascinated by the remote controls for the TV and Daddy's video game controllers.  For a long time he tried to keep you from getting them but finally gave in and just started letting you have them.  I wiped them all down so if you were going to chew on them at least they are relatively clean, but it's like you know what you're not supposed to play with and that's the only thing you want.  We can try to distract you with any other toys that you otherwise love, but if a remote is in sight, those toys are useless.

You continue to love playing with your feet.  If you're not wearing socks you will actually get your big toe in your mouth and suck on it.  I can't imagine where this could have come from *note extreme sarcasm*.  Your Uncle Matt would tell you that I did the very same thing as a child when I was much older than you.

You are definitely at the age where everything goes in your mouth.  Recently you can't get enough hard things to suck on, including my face.  You'll take any part of it, but the chin and jawline tend to be your favorite.

You are really into lift-the-flap books right now.

I don't know if it's developmentally the right time, but I am certain you are starting to recognize and respond to your name.

Over the weekend we had a playdate with your buddy Kelly and we visited your first pumpkin patch.  As a girl from America's heartland, where a pumpkin patch means you visit the place where pumpkins are actually grown, this left something to be desired, but Kelly's mom and I were excited at the idea anyway.  To those readers back home, let me explain that a "city" pumpkin patch is essentially an empty lot where someone sets up and sells pumpkins in October and trees in December.  There was a bounce house, face painting, and a mini petting zoo for older kids, but no sign of anything that could actually grow a pumpkin.  We had fun anyway and you were pretty fascinated just watching everything going on so I still consider it a success.