Seven Months Old
Today marks the end of Pearl's seventh month. She seems like such a big baby now... she's left the helpless, indecipherable baby behind and is starting to interact with us in more sophisticated ways.
She is poised on the edge of mobility, getting up and rocking back and forth on hands and knees, sometimes even moving one leg forward before collapsing onto her belly. When that fails her, she inches forward by rolling to one side, then rolling all the way back onto the other side, swinging her head first and using its momentum to steer her movement. It's pretty funny to watch.
She wants to practice crawling any time she is on the bed, and because I lay down in bed with her to nurse her to sleep at naptime, she thinks she should be able to try and crawl away while she's eating, which just doesn't work! Although she has mastered nursing while laying on her belly, up on her hands - it must be very enjoyable to nurse in that position because she gets the most blissed out look on her face.
Besides the sign for milk - which she abandoned a few days after learning, then resumed using after another week or so, as she does with most things she learns - she knows the sign for "pick me up", which I did not purposefully teach her but is a sign that most babies learn, arms stretched up towards mama. If I am on the floor with her and she wants to be held she turns towards me and tries to climb onto my lap. It is much easier to tell what she wants these days.
Pearl has begun to babble and I just love listening to her ramble on. She makes lots of 'b' sounds these days, as well as some astonishingly high-pitched squeaks. She loves to laugh. Seeing other people laughing makes her laugh. When I showed her the picture of her laughing below, she laughed at it too!
We have been trying to move away from bouncing her to sleep and were successful until the holidays, when our schedule was thrown for a week and I ate goodies that gave Pearl reflux. So for now we're back to bouncing - hopefully not for long, as my back is starting to tell me how heavy she's getting. Which is somewhere over 17 lbs... she had a well-baby checkup this month. I didn't get the measurement exactly, as she was sitting up on the scale and I was concentrating on catching her if she toppled over. But she didn't. She's getting very good at the whole sitting up thing. She was in the 95th percentile in height, 75th in weight, and 50th in head - she is a long, lean baby.
I took a thousand pictures of Pearl in her Christmas dress to give as gifts at the beginning of this month, and this is the one that turned out best:
It was very difficult to keep her upright in that slippery dress on my bed in my cramped room without any help, while trying to capture a smile and get the exposure just right. Here are a couple that didn't turn out so well, but I love nonetheless:
Poor little Pearl is ending her seventh month with a delayed Christmas gift from my family - her first cold. Her nose is runny and her eyes are watering and she has a fever that's been rising since this afternoon. She let me rock her for a long time, nestled in my arms, her small body curved around mine - usually she is far too busy for rocking.
Sometimes when she is asleep I put my hand on her chest just to feel the strong rise and fall of her breath and the quick, steady thump of her heart, to marvel at the miracle that is Life. Holding her when she is ill brings a similar sort of awe - a more solemn feeling, the newly remembered fact that our bodies can fail. That fact in this context is a hard one for me to deal with.
Because I don't know what I'd do without my sweet sunshiny girl!
She is poised on the edge of mobility, getting up and rocking back and forth on hands and knees, sometimes even moving one leg forward before collapsing onto her belly. When that fails her, she inches forward by rolling to one side, then rolling all the way back onto the other side, swinging her head first and using its momentum to steer her movement. It's pretty funny to watch.
She wants to practice crawling any time she is on the bed, and because I lay down in bed with her to nurse her to sleep at naptime, she thinks she should be able to try and crawl away while she's eating, which just doesn't work! Although she has mastered nursing while laying on her belly, up on her hands - it must be very enjoyable to nurse in that position because she gets the most blissed out look on her face.
Besides the sign for milk - which she abandoned a few days after learning, then resumed using after another week or so, as she does with most things she learns - she knows the sign for "pick me up", which I did not purposefully teach her but is a sign that most babies learn, arms stretched up towards mama. If I am on the floor with her and she wants to be held she turns towards me and tries to climb onto my lap. It is much easier to tell what she wants these days.
Pearl has begun to babble and I just love listening to her ramble on. She makes lots of 'b' sounds these days, as well as some astonishingly high-pitched squeaks. She loves to laugh. Seeing other people laughing makes her laugh. When I showed her the picture of her laughing below, she laughed at it too!
We have been trying to move away from bouncing her to sleep and were successful until the holidays, when our schedule was thrown for a week and I ate goodies that gave Pearl reflux. So for now we're back to bouncing - hopefully not for long, as my back is starting to tell me how heavy she's getting. Which is somewhere over 17 lbs... she had a well-baby checkup this month. I didn't get the measurement exactly, as she was sitting up on the scale and I was concentrating on catching her if she toppled over. But she didn't. She's getting very good at the whole sitting up thing. She was in the 95th percentile in height, 75th in weight, and 50th in head - she is a long, lean baby.
I took a thousand pictures of Pearl in her Christmas dress to give as gifts at the beginning of this month, and this is the one that turned out best:
It was very difficult to keep her upright in that slippery dress on my bed in my cramped room without any help, while trying to capture a smile and get the exposure just right. Here are a couple that didn't turn out so well, but I love nonetheless:
That silly face!
Falling over!
Poor little Pearl is ending her seventh month with a delayed Christmas gift from my family - her first cold. Her nose is runny and her eyes are watering and she has a fever that's been rising since this afternoon. She let me rock her for a long time, nestled in my arms, her small body curved around mine - usually she is far too busy for rocking.
Sometimes when she is asleep I put my hand on her chest just to feel the strong rise and fall of her breath and the quick, steady thump of her heart, to marvel at the miracle that is Life. Holding her when she is ill brings a similar sort of awe - a more solemn feeling, the newly remembered fact that our bodies can fail. That fact in this context is a hard one for me to deal with.
Because I don't know what I'd do without my sweet sunshiny girl!
posted by fuzzypeach | 6:13 PM
6 Comments:
What a beautiful post. <3 She sure is growing up fast, and she's a beauty! I love the pictures you posted, her sweet disposition really comes through in those shots! :)
As always, she's beautiful!
Love that one of her falling over! I have to fine enough time to write Anyas. With two girls on the move, it's hard to get anything done!
I love the last pic of her falling over. And her eyes, girl, she's got some SERIOUSLY GORGEOUS EYES. Bean also abandons something for a week or two after learning it---and then resumes it. I wonder why that is? Any ideas?
She is soooo adorable- makes me want a girl so bad! Lovely post.
Those pictures are soooo pretty of her in her holiday dress. Great photog skills too. I need to attempt some portrait styles instead of just the plain old home style pics. Not like he'd smile though.
I didn't know you did well-baby, I thought you stopped for some reason. She's growing so well! Her Papa is long and lean too isn't he? She seems like such a happy baby, I hope she is feeling better now and she has some relief from her new tooth!
We skipped the four month well baby visit, but I wanted to go to the six month in case there's something we missed... also wanted to see about getting lead testing done as we live in this old-ass house. But the Dr. wanted to wait until she was mobile before testing for lead, so we'll either have it done at the 9 month visit, or skip it and have it done at the 12 month visit... or maybe not do it at all if we're out of here before she is crawling around.
Her daddy is indeed long and tall.
Christina, I don't know why it is... perhaps once they've learned something, the 'vital urge' as montessori puts it, to learn it fades and they move on to trying to learn other things, only to pick up the original new skill in passing once again? The framework for it already being there, relearning it it a much easier process? I dunno....
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