Blakesley Ann: 7 Months!

Be still my heart!  This sweet little bundle of joy is already 7 months!  

What's new:  Blakesley is getting really good at sitting up by herself (though I still like to put pillows around her).  She continues to move around by rolling, but will push up and try to lift her belly off the ground.  I still think crawling is near, or at least army crawling.  She's really strong.  Blakesley is finally starting to eat food as of this week!  She is expanding her vocabulary and babbling a lot more with different sounds coming out.  

She is always smiling and opening up her mouth to make these funny fake cough sounds.

And she is ALWAYS grabbing for anything that is not hers!

Sleeping:  Just a little over a week ago, I cut out her middle of the night feed.  She still wakes up every night around 2 or 3 am, but I send Marcus in and he rocks her or changes her diaper and she falls back asleep.  Soon, we will have to cut that out too, and just let her cry it out, but for now at least she stopped eating!  Blakesley goes to bed at 6:00 pm and will sleep until 5 AM usually for her morning feeding, and then fall back asleep for a few more hours.  Blakesley usually takes 2 good naps a day if we are home.  One in the morning about an hour and a half after she is up for good
 ( usually falls around 9 am) and then another one around 1:00 pm in the afternoon.  If her morning nap is super short, she will sometimes still take 3 naps.  Or, if we are in the car all day, she will nap on the go.  It is getting harder for her to fall asleep on the go, but she is still very adaptable and portable.  Poor thing had to get woken up at 12:00 today to head to a gymnastics meet.  And she refused to nap in her car seat or stroller all day. She was up until 7:00 pm and never once fussed.  She just didn't want to miss out!
Blakesley takes a pacifier at bedtime and also sleeps in her sleep sack, with a sound machine going.  She is getting use to the crib and likes to play her little light up dog when we leave the room.  She usually cries for a few minutes when we walk out and shut the door.

This was right before I had to wake her up this afternoon.  I hate waking up my kids.

 Eating:  I haven't tried the bottle in the last month since I tried for a week and failed miserably.  I cancelled my trip I was suppose to go on and decided I didn't want to put her health in jeopardy.  The fact she went 13 hours without eating and almost 18 hours with a dry diaper scared me and I didn't want to leave her like that with Marcus!  I went to the Doctor yesterday for her 2nd flu shot and they gave me some more advice on trying the bottle again. I may try again soon.  Nursing is still going wonderful, and I am grateful for our special relationship.  We have many inside jokes while I feed her and she brings me so much joy!  She laughs and makes certain noises, or if I say or sing certain things, I can always get her to laugh.  It's definitely a special bond and time we get to share together to step away from our chaotic lives.  She is very distracted nursing anywhere around other people, so I try to feed her in her nursery if possible.  She nurses 4-5 times a day .
 She hasn't shown much of an interest in baby food, or any food, but we continue to try every day.  I know breast milk is her main source of nutrition, so I'm not too worried about it.  Yesterday she actually ate a ton of pureed carrots and kept wanting more!  She was like a baby bird and that was a first!  She also ate scrambled eggs with swiss and gruyere cheese.  A few other foods she has picked around and put in her mouth the last two weeks:  tomatoes, bananas, apples, avocados, eggplant, tuna, peppers, black beans, garbanzo beans, rice, quinoa, blueberries, cheerios, kale puffs, mum mum crackers, whole wheat tortilla.  The most she has eaten was the apples, carrots and eggs.  I am also working on water in the sippy cup.  She enjoys sitting at the high chair and copying her sisters eating, even if she doesn't swallow all the food or even get it in her mouth :)

Blakesley is literally the happiest baby!  The only time she cries is if you take something away from her that she is holding, such as in the bath, when she wants to bring bath toys back to her room and never let go of them!  Or, lately, she cries and flips like crazy every time I lay her on her changing pad because she tries to grab her closet light switch.  I cannot keep her on her back.  She is so silly, funny, loving, adorable and we all just love her more than anything!  She will sit in her car seat or stroller for hours on end throughout our busy days, and you can always count on her to laugh or smile or coo at you.  She is happy, relaxed and a healthy baby.  We are so blessed.  Yesterday at the Doctor she was 15 lbs with her clothes on.

Blakesley loves:  mommy's milk, laughing at and with her sisters, belly blows from Daddy, being tossed in the air by Daddy, running with Mommy in her stroller, singing the songs Mommy sang to her in the womb, fake coughing and blowing raspberries, kicking her feet non-stop, taking baths and playing with all of her fun baby toys.