7 Months: Where Does the Time Go?

A super close-up!

I tried to get a photo of her teeth.  It didn't work.

Yes, Joanna is somehow seven months old today.  I checked the calendar a few times to be sure.

Joanna is a very happy baby.  She smiles at everybody, she loves to be engaged, and she laughs easily.  Of course, there are times she gets upset.  In general, she's easy to calm.

Jo's first tooth arrived on May 18.  Her second tooth erupted this past Wednesday, so she now has two bottom teeth.  With both teeth, I worried she had an ear infection because she cried while pulling on her ears and titling her head to the side.  Neither of our kids teethe well, I've come to discover.  I took advice from a friend of mine and gave Jo a cob with the corn scraped off.  I don't know if it helped her teething pain or not, but she loved it.

Jo loves food.  She eats Cheerio halves all the time now.  She gets about one out of four into her mouth herself.  If I'm eating a bread product, like a bun or toast, I tear off teeny tiny pieces and let her have those.  She eats pureed baby food a few times a day, too.  I'm trying to get her up to three non-milk meals a day, but she typically has just two.  Jo loves proteins; her favorite meals are pureed turkey meals and pureed lentil meals.  She likes vegetables a lot, too, especially jarred green beans.  She doesn't like a lot of fruit.  She hates bananas and makes sour faces at apple sauce.  I think she liked mango, though!

We practice letting Jo drink sips of water from the cup.  She loves water.  I mean, she loves it and gets upset when we take the cup away.  She's getting pretty good at sipping from it, but I always hold the cup for her.

Our baby girl is a strong one.  She sits all by herself now.  She loves rolling over.  She's been working at scooting forward a bit like an earthworm, but sometimes she ends up moving backward, and, other times, she just spins like a clock.

As far as people go, Joanna acts like she needs me all the time.  People generally aren't allowed to hold her if she sees me in the room.  It's not that she necessarily wants me to play or talk to her.  She just wants me to hold her, and then she's content to socialize with other people.  It's kind of cute, but it's also exhausting holding a 16+ pound baby all day long!  Joanna loves her daddy, and he makes her laugh all the time.  He tickles her belly and lets her pull his hair.  I tease him that Jo already has him wrapped around her little baby finger.  The other person she just adores is Grandpa Larry.  She gets super excited to see him and starts kicking her legs frantically and squealing when he's around.  She grabs at his nose and twists and grabs hold of his cheeks.

Jo is "talking" more.  Her newest sound is, "BWA," and she says it all the time.  She's in the midst of a screeching phase, but her screeches are more like angry screams, even though she's not angry when she yells.  She sure sounds like she is, though!  That makes trips out and about interesting.

Here's a list of Jo's likes and dislikes at 7 months old:

Likes:
*Playing roll-over
*Daddy tickling her tummy
*Mommy pretending to eat her feet
*Watching Oliver play with his toys
*Strumming the guitar on the iPad
*Pulling at Grandpa Larry's face
*Being held by Mommy
*Baby food and Cheerios
*Water to drink
*Water to "swim" in, including baths
*Going outside
*Sitting in the grass

Dislikes:
*The car seat
*The hot car
*Oliver hugging her for too long
*Teething

A bit of nostalgia: Oliver's 7 month update

Oliver's First Photo Shoot

For Mother's Day, Andrew's mom, Colleen, gave me a photo shoot for Oliver. The original plan was to have his pictures taken then, in the middle of May. I decided that the pictures would be better if Oliver was sitting, which he wasn't really at that time. So we waited until yesterday.

Yesterday, Colleen and I took Oliver to Wash Park to meet the photographer. He was dressed in his new jean shorts from Colleen and a plain, white T-shirt that I picked out for the occassion.

Our photographer, Lisa, brought a bucket and soft, white blanket with her. We took photos of Oliver in the bucket first. He was smiling and giggling, and it went well. We moved on to the edge of the pond and took photos of him sitting up on his own. He was even more smiley in those pictures. From there, we took a few pictures of him with Colleen. There were "serious" pictures of him studying her necklace as well as pictures of him in fits of laughter. After those, I set Oliver on the park bench, and Lisa took pictures of him smiling and looking serious. He sat there for quite some time, so I imagine there'll be a lot of good ones of him chilling on the bench. Last, but definitely not least, was my favorite of the bunch: Oliver wearing only his diaper, sitting right in front of a couple ducks. They were maybe five feet away, and Oliver was holding his stuffed, fuzzy duckling. The best part? He was crying. That sounds mean of me, but, I swear, it was so cute. At that point, we'd been taking pictures in the heat (yes, it was brutally hot even though we started at 9am) for an hour and a half. Of course he was cranky! But, I'm telling you, he looked absolutely adorable.

I'm dying to see all these pictures! Of course, she has to edit them on work on them for a bit. Lisa estimates we'll get our pictures in 2-3 weeks. Colleen was talking about buying the digital copies of them all so we can print from home, so I should be posting photos within a month!

Seven Months Old and Going Strong

Our Ollie Bear is 7 months old today! This last month has flown by; I feel as though I just updated his 6 month status.

His personality has started to develop more this month. He doesn't like loud noises and, in fact, cries when certain people laugh (Specifically, when my good friend, Phuong, and Andrew's good friend, Dom, laugh. They both have booming laughs!). He's very observant, although we've known that from the day he was born! In fact, my good friend, Aminta, tells me that her mom still talks about how she's never seen such an alert newborn. That trait has continued to develop. He picks things up, studies them, tests them in his mouth, and bangs them on things. He'll pick up two objects and bang them together. He scratches at objects and table tops to see what they feel like. He flips objects over in his hands to see them from different angles. During feeding time, when I hand him his spoon, he now sticks his hand into the food and watches his hand as he mashes the food between his fingers. Lately, he's gotten extra grabby. My glasses are not safe! Today, Andrew opened his desk drawer, and within 5 seconds, Oliver reached in and threw two packs of batteries and a glue stick onto the floor.

Oliver's also getting more mobile. He tries very hard to push himself forward, and he frequently uses one foot to push forward a few inches and then flops onto his back. Then, he rolls back onto his stomach and pushes with one foot again, moving forward and flopping onto his back. Occasionally, he pushes himself up into a position that's similar to the yoga pose, downward dog. We have to watch him all the time now! We haven't set up the baby gate, but if I'm on the opposite end of a room from him, I keep the door closed so he doesn't motor out to the stairs. Speaking of which, Oliver took his first tumble this month, too (and it was my fault). I was changing his diaper up on the couch. I finished buttoning him up, and I turned my head from him for (literally) 3 seconds, and he plopped over and off the couch! Thank goodness, he landed on his butt, but I was so scared. I'm sure many of you other moms/dads know what I mean, as it's the worst feeling, ever.

Oliver officially has two teeth! His bottom right tooth popped through on May 16. He teethed for just over a week, and he was so miserable I took him to urgent care because I didn't realize he was teething. Last Sunday, I thought his top left tooth broke through. Turns out, it was pushing against the gum so I could see it, but it didn't actually break through until today. The teething wasn't too terrible this time around. He drooled a lot, which irritated his chin, and he wouldn't let us touch his mouth. Now he's my little jack-o-lantern!

His solid food selection is rapidly expanding. As far as grains go, he's had baby rice cereal, baby oatmeal, and Cheerios (oats). For fruit, he's had apples, pears, bananas, and avocado. His favorite fruit is definitely bananas! For vegetables, he's had carrots, parsnip, sweet potatoes (he's coming around on those but still doesn't love them), peas, onions, and green beans. Of those, he really likes carrots, peas, and green beans. As for the meat group, Oliver has tried turkey, and he seems to like it (although he's not sure about the texture). He has had both jarred turkey and homemade turkey that Andrew's mom made for him. We still haven't given him much dairy, although is pediatrician gave the green light on it. His turkey dinner was made with a touch of butter, and he did OK with that. Today, for the first time, we gave him some baby yogurt. He liked it very much, but because it's higher in fat than anything else he's eaten before, he got full quickly. Thankfully, Andrew was around to eat the rest. Also, we gave him a little taste of our homemade mango sorbet (it just had mangos and limes with a little sugar and water), and he really loved it!

Cheerio halves are the only finger foods he's tried. He picks up the halves but has only gotten one into his mouth so far. I pop them in for him, and he loves them!

He's also kind of drinking water from a cup. Well, first, let me say, on the rare occasion he has a bottle, he drinks the milk himself. When I give him a cup of water, I hold onto it with him and help him tip it. He drinks it right up! Sometimes, when I let go, he drinks it just fine. Other times, he spills it everywhere, but he's definitely learning!

Oliver is sitting very well, but he's still not at a point where we could plop him down on the floor and walk away. When he has something against his butt, like my leg, he'll sit for 10 minutes or more. When he's completely on his own, I think his record is about 3 or 4 minutes before falling over or pushing himself forward.

Diaper changes are getting more exciting. First, he tries to roll everywhere, so it's hard to seal them. Then, when we do Velcro/stick the diaper (depending on if it's cloth or disposable), he undoes the seal! One day, it was hilarious: Andrew sealed one side and moved to the other. Oliver undid the first seal. Andrew went back to snap that one, and Oliver undid the other side, and so on and so forth. Yesterday, Andrew's parents watched Oliver for a couple of hours. Colleen had Oliver just in his cloth diaper. She let him play for a few minutes, and when she went back to him, he'd unsnapped and wiggled out of the diaper!

As for "talking," Oliver loves to say, "Momomomomom," and I pretend he's calling my name. He also coos and babbles to himself. I'd say his most common sounds are "Heh," "Meh," and "Yeah." The screeching has decreased drastically!

He smiles and laughs all the time now. Every time he looks us in the eye, he smiles. He smiles every time Andrew comes home. He smiles when we get to his crib when he wakes up (which is currently once at 2:30am and then up for the day around 6am). He laughs when we smooch his tummy or play with his feet, and he laughs sometimes when we make funny faces.


Finally, here are a list of his likes and dislikes for the month:

Likes:
*Mom
*Dad
*Playing with his feet
*Being naked
*Untying Andrew's shoelaces
*Nursing
*Looking at the ceiling fan
*Playing with the Wii mote or the remote (minus the batteries)
*Rolling around on the floor
*Playing with Ducky
*Throwing things
*Chewing on Tupperware
*Sitting out on the back porch with us
*Bananas
*Mango sorbet
*Getting his tummy smooched
*Having us pretend to eat his feet
*His jumparoo
*Playing "This Little Piggy"
*Bath time
*Costco
*"Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"


Dislikes:
*Getting a shirt pulled over his head
*Being alone
*Loud noises
*Loud laughter