Acelyn: 7 Months

How in the world is this little lady officially closer to one than a new baby!?  It's amazing how fast time is flying by, especially the second time around.  I want to swaddle her up and snuggle the heck out of her to keep her tiny, but this girl has too much growing to do and exploring on her mind.  Month seven has brought a whole new independence to Acelyn, and she's not slowing down anytime soon!  

Acelyn has become mobile (mostly), and although she can't officially crawl, she's rolling, scooting and wobbling her way to get to every square inch of our house.  She is so close to crawling, and can get on all fours and rock back and forth, but just hasn't quite figured out how to hold her weight and move her legs at the same time.  To get around, she's perfectly content with scooting on her booty while sitting, rolling all over the place, crawling backwards and hopping around between her knees and booty, which is quite the sight to see!  She's quick, too, because I'll turn around and she'll be in a completely different place than the two seconds she was before.  She wants so badly to move herself up into sitting position from laying, and she's only done it on her own once (she'll master this in a week or two, I bet!).  You can tell she struggles and tries so hard to do it, but once we help her, the look of satisfaction on her face is priceless.  She's started walking in the walker and absolutely loves to chase after Nolan and has picked up how to move around in it very quickly.  As you can tell from the pictures, she is seriously all over the place without being officially "mobile", and taking these pictures on the ottoman was dealing with a daredevil- she may have fallen off once but don't worry... I caught her!   (Seriously- the series of photos below is how active this girl is and how hard it is to get a photo of her sitting, smiling, aaaand not trying to repel off the ottoman!)

She's growing her vocabulary just as much as she's growing in her ability to get around- Acelyn can say Mama now, officially, and tends to say it when she is looking for me or is tired/hungry/needs something.  She loves to babble and has different sounds that she uses over and over, like Bababa, Yayayaya, Ahhhhs and Ooooos, and lots of blowing of raspberries.  She knows how to laugh in response to something funny and will actually let out a "Heh, heh!" to make her humor known.  She is a goofy little girl and gets louder and louder as each month goes by (life of a second child, maybe?!).  She's most often in a good mood and when we're around the house, always has lots of screeches and happy screams to share, especially when she's in her high chair or her jumper.  Her brother is still her absolute favorite thing and will give him the biggest smile the second she spots him.

waving

Acelyn can wave when asked, and although it's not an exact hand wave, her arm still goes up and down a mile a minute when waved to or if you ask her to wave to someone.  She can also give kisses when asked and I'm obsessed with her open mouth smacks.  She will mimic laughs and banging on the highchair or table just as you show her.  She loves to snuggle and will wrap her arms around your neck when you pick her up as soon as she wakes up, and digs her head into your neck or even rubs her face on yours if she's still a little sleepy.  She has started with "stranger danger" and gives the lip when she's faced with a new person.  She will definitely cling to Mama and snuggles her face in my neck to play shy, but mostly, warms up quickly. 

Everything goes directly into her mouth and she's totally aware of every.little.thing around her (which means Nolan also has to be more aware of what he leaves lying around!).  She loves to discover new things, hence why she's constantly on the move, literally rolling to every square inch of any room we are in. I've found her half way under the ottoman and under Nolan's bed, and her favorite spots are rolling into corners or against furniture and getting stuck, where she'll then just hang out and grab at whatever is next to her until she gets frustrated.  

I just can't get over how quickly Acelyn is growing and learning new things, and I'm loving her progress into these new ages and stages.  The next few months were my favorite with Nolan (6-12 months), so I am excited to experience all of Acelyn's milestones coming, too.

Here's what else Acelyn is up to at 7 months:

Height, Weight and Sizes:
With no official weigh-in for this month, Acelyn is probably a solid 16.5 pounds and roughly 27" long (measuring a wiggly baby is not easy).  I can tell her height growth has slowed because she's becoming rounder and feels chunkier, and I'm totally okay with baby rolls (I'm seriously obsessed with her thighs).  She remains in most 6-9 month sizes, 9 months fitting best on her.  She continues to grow into more 12 month items like pajamas and bottoms, and her diapers are still size 3s.  

Feeding: 
Acelyn has continued to sample most Stage 2 purees and hasn't been too picky about them!  The only one she didn't love was peaches, but everything else she's gobbled up.  She definitely prefers veggies over fruit, but we have a pretty decent schedule of eating both every day- fruit for breakfast and veggies for dinner.  At breakfast, she doesn't eat nearly as much, only finishing half of a container, but for dinner, girlfriend can eat a whole container and more.

I plan to introduce finger foods during lunch, just like we did with Nolan, but find it so hard to let her have at it when she still has no teeth!  I know she'll be fine gumming it, so I'm just being overly paranoid, but I think this is just one of the first ways she'll suffer from my babying her (for being the youngest and, well, my baby!)  She has tried avocado chunks and did just fine and liked it!  She still spits out Mum Mums and puffs, and does the same with Cheerios, too.  She'll need some practice with this real food situation, I think!

She also still breastfeeds every 3-4 hours and sticks to the same schedule as last month with her feedings, mostly!

Sleeping:
We're on a pretty flexible schedule the last month, since we've been so busy being in and out of the house, running errands, getting ready for the holidays, etc.  Luckily, Acelyn is a flexible baby and tends to go with the flow and the schedule I put her on for the day.  We have two different types of schedules- one for when we stay home and in the whole day, and one for when we run errands.  If we stay in, Acelyn gets a much more routine schedule with good, long naps (one at 9AM and another around 1PM), whereas if we are on the go, she takes shorter naps in the AM with one long afternoon nap the same time as Nolan, around 1:30-2PM (which is great for me)!  I almost want to start putting her on that type of schedule just so I'm able to get more things done around the house with both of them napping at the same time- so it's something we may work on in the coming months!  When she has the long afternoon nap, she doesn't have a catnap in the early evening, but seems to manage well from staying up from 3:30ish to bedtime at 8PM.  If we're home and she's on the earlier schedule, she still needs to get at least a 30 minute snooze around 4:30PM.  

She continues to dreamfeed at 10:30PM and 2-3AM, although some nights she has started going until about 5AM... so I'm hoping she's learning to stretch her sleep a little longer and we may get some longer hours of sleep in the near future!

Likes:
-Rolling, scooting, exploring... everywhere!
-Playing Peek-a-Boo
-Asking her to say, Mama!  She'll always give a big smile
-Flying in the air
-Playing "Chase" with Nolan
-Finding her paci and putting it in herself 
-Remotes, phones, baby monitor
-Playing with clean diapers
-Teethers
-Walking in the walker
-Baths and splashing
-"Wresting" (rolling on the ground) with Nolan
-Toothbrushes
-Eating solids
-Playing with big brother's toys

Dislikes:
-Still doesn't love the carseat
-Outfit changes
-Puffs/Mum Mums/finger foods, peaches
-Stranger danger
-Not being able to move from laying to sitting
-Taking something away (like a remote or the phone) or if Nolan takes a toy she's playing with 

Here's to another month down and just a few more to go until her first birthday!  (Ahhhhhhh, ugly tears!!)