7 months

Well, here is Elly at 7 months.  She is sitting up very well and hardly ever falls over, but I still like to have the boppy behind her just in case.  Now if we can ever get to crawling.  Whenever I put her on her belly to practice, she immediately rolls over.  She hates being on her belly.  I hope she learns to crawl soon, though, because she's not very good at entertaining herself lately.  She is bored with her usual toys. 

 

It is hard getting this girl to smile at me for pictures.  She smiles much more readily at Peter and Chris.

 

 

 

I recall trying to get her to smile in this picture, but she was clearly done with the picture taking.

Here's a big smile for Daddy.

She just lights up with Chris in the room.

And this one was when Peter was doing something she found amusing.  She smiles at Peter often.

She is a cute little 7 month old.  Now we wish she would start jabbering.  Still nothing.  Little coos, but mostly just silence.  I know she can hear really well because she's very responsive to sound, just not very vocal.  And she's oddly good at expressing her wishes, despite her lack of jabber, but she doesn't seem to want to experiment with sounds yet.  Although in the past few days she has been doing some raspberries.  We are a little impatient I think because Peter was saying all kinds of consonants and combining syllables at 5 months. 

She is doing crazy things with her sleep.  Sometimes she is up several times, and sometimes just once.  It was so easy to sleep train Peter because he was bottle fed.  Not proving so easy with a particular breast fed baby.  Hopefully she will adjust to a schedule sooner rather than later.     

Elly, five and six months

Here is our cute little angel at five months.  She started to get super interactive around this time.  She especially loves her daddy and Peter.  She smiles whenever Peter gets close to her or whenever he is also smiling.  So fun to see..  Although it has only been recent that he has taken an interest in her.  

She has not been babbling at all, which worries us a little, but she coos and is very social in every other way.  It's probably too bad that she has an older brother that was super advanced with his speech, thereby causing us to compare Elly with Peter all the time. 

She started rolling over at five months, but hates being on her tummy.  In fact, only at the end of six months did she learn to sit up.  We worried about that because she always hated when we would try to have her sit anywhere.  She always wanted to be standing or be held.  She has been a very particular baby so far. 

Chris and I have noticed that she is polar opposite from Peter in every way.  Girl.  Not a great night sleeper.  Great nurser.  Very sensitive and gets feelings hurt very easily.  Cries easily.  Won't take to solids.  Slow to speak.  Even though Peter is in his terrible twos, he is still fairly mellow, which does not describe Elly AT ALL.  I have a feeling I might understand what karma is when she gets old enough to be a dramatic young lady...

At six months she finally learned to sit up.  At the very end of six months.  She was just too stubborn to practice it.  She would always arch her back whenever you tried to sit her down, making it impossible for her to be sitting.  Thank goodness for the bumbo to give her some practice.  She couldn't arch her back out of that thing.  :)  But strangely, she didn't seem to mind sitting in it.   

She is chewing on everything, all the time.  At six months, she was content to chew on her teething toys, but now she is getting moody if we don't let her chew on non-teething items.  I guess she is bored.

Also I feel I should mention she transitioned from 3-6 clothes to 6-9 clothes at 5 months, and then just a month later to 9-12 clothes.  Somebody had a little growth spurt!  So now she is back on target with her growth from when she was two months. 

Sleep has been a real issue.  She was so great at five months, but lately she has been getting up at least three times a night.  I tried doing the cry-it-out thing, but that was disastrous and she just screamed.  The girl really likes to nurse for comfort.  I always put her down for naps and sleep when she's still awake, and she is able to fall asleep without any drama.  So I can't understand why she feels the need to nurse every time she wakes up at night.  I'm really hoping she gets better with her sleep, but I am feeling at the end of my rope sometimes.  SO TIRED!   

Whenever I try to take a picture of Elly, Peter always wants to be front and center in the picture.  Such a funny boy.  He has taken to giving cute little smiles for pictures again, so that is fun. 

It is also nice that he acknowledges his little sister now.  Although he doesn't like to get to close to her if she is in a grab everything mood.  She can scratch pretty well if I don't keep her nails trimmed.

Fun picture of the three of them.  Oh how I love my sweet little family.  I'll have to update more on Peter and Elly at 7 months later.  I need to get more pictures.  With two kids on my own, I am so very bad at remembering to take pictures.