Lots of New Things {Seven Months}
Perry is officially on her way to her first birthday. She's now seven months old, and I'm basically just dying inside that her first year is on it's downward slope. I'm not ready for her to be big yet. I selfishly just want her to stay a baby forever. We are having so much fun watching her grow, though.
This little girl is always smiling. She's started to do this little fake laugh, because she knows it will make you laugh. She has such a silly personality. This month has probably been her biggest month for growth. She's doing lots of new things.
The biggest milestone is that she is practically crawling. Perr will go from sitting up to down on all fours, rock, pick up one hand at a time, and then go back to sitting. It's so funny, because sometimes she will put her hand in front of her (like this picture above) and stand on her feet bouncing her little tush. Isaac tells her to stop twerking.
Perry still has two teeth and has been eating almost a whole jar of baby food each night. It's mostly something like sweet potatoes and apricots or pumpkin and apples. I don't think she has a favorite. She's never too excited, but she'll eat it if we offer. I'm anxious to try puffs and yogurt melts, but for some reason they're terrifying to me. I'm convinced she's going to choke every time we let her try something "solid". She had a noodle last week in little bites and did well with it, so we'll probably be moving into more regular foods over the jars now. Mostly, I just nurse her. We haven't tried the bottle for a while, but we're anticipating the start of day care in January, so it's something we'll be working on in the next month. I'm not ready, but she is. This kid loves to play with other babies, and I'm pretty sure she's bored out of her mind at the office nowadays.
We're still on a decent schedule where she wakes up around six, naps on the way to work, plays in the pack 'n play for a bit, eats and goes down for her morning nap around eight. When she wakes up, we go through a kind of rotation of playing with her toys, nursing, and then napping. She watches Book of Life all day at work, too, so Allison and I know every word and song. It's the only movie she's really interested in. She usually naps in the car on the way home and then plays with her sisters until she gets tired in the evening. Depending on when this starts, Daddy feeds her some jar food around six, and then I give her a bath, swaddle her up, nurse her, and put her in the DockATot. From there, she falls asleep and then wakes every three hours or so to nurse at night. This kid has always been a power nurser and always only eats for three to five minutes each session. This is especially nice during those middle-of-the-night feedings.
Perry's teeth are adorable and extra cute when she's babbles or says "dada" and "mama". She mostly yells for Dada when she's playing and happy, and then she yells for Mama when she needs something or is crying. Grace explained that kids cry for their moms when they need something, because they grew in their mommies' tummies and their blood is connected to them. Interesting.
She's currently weighing in at 16.8 pounds and is 27 inches long. She's kind of gaining on Grace, because she's closer to being three pounds lighter rather than her typical four pounds that she's been weighing in at. She's in size 6-12 month clothes, and her size one moccs are almost too small. She's also still in her size three diapers. We recently switched to the Parasol brand, and I love them. We've had far less blow outs than before, and they are so soft. The Babies R Us brand that we used with Grace and Char were leaving these weird little gel balls on her tush like the diaper was falling apart. Huggies and Pampers always leak, and since Perry was prone to massive blow outs, the change was necessary.
Perr is still hiding her face in my shoulder whenever anyone makes her smile. She's so shy, and it is so sweet. She is now sitting up by herself from a laying down position, rolling across the room crazy fast, practically crawling, and she's pulling herself up to stand against the ottoman in the living room. It's her favorite thing ever, and she giggles the whole time. She must feel like such a big girl, because that's when she has her biggest smiles and bursts of laughter. It makes the rest of us laugh just watching her. She now loves to stand all the time and is always pushing off of us to get her feet underneath her.
Grace and Charley are still the favs and can always get her to crack a smile and squeal with excitement. She's also started to notice Toodles more this month and can't wait to get her little hands on him.
We love this little booger so much it hurts. She's so much fun at this stage, even though I miss her being smaller. It's so fun to watch her learn new things and be so proud of herself. What did we ever do without you, Perr Bear? Happy Seven Months!!
(Grace - Charley - Perry)
