a belated 7 months

Happy 7 months Minnie Moo!

Our trip to the east coast got me a little behind so I am now posting this 12 days after Minnie's 7-month mark. Not a whole lot has changed in those 12 days, except for the fact that she no longer has a mysterious "tooth" (aka cist).

These pictures are getting more difficult to take because the kid just doesn't sit still anymore. She's also not very easily amused by my dancing and weird noises that used to get her to look at the camera and smile. Now I just look like a big idiot.

Seven months is quite possibly the best stage. Minnie is so engaged in everything and smiles all the time. She's also a lot more mobile, which is kind of a double-edged sword. She's not quite sure how to make her body work entirely so she usually ends up in odd positions or gets frustrated and falls back and bumps her head. Can you imagine having to learn how your body works? She's got a tough job.

Here are a few of Minnie's most recent developments:

• She moves her little hands from the wrist down in circles when she's getting frustrated and is about to get upset and cry. Her feet will also get moving in the same motion if she's lying down.
• She can almost pull herself up to stand
• She's also almost crawling. She can go from sitting to a crawling position, but she usually ends up on her tummy and then rolls all over, even though she still doesn't like tummy time much
• She always has to be holding something and if she's not, she's reaching for something. She has LOVED sweatshirt strings for the last few months. She'll chew on them all day if you let her.
• She loves the grass and being outside and touching and picking up all the little things you can possibly find out on the ground
• She eats bread, graham crackers, muffins, popsicles...lots of new foods. 
• She picks up the tiniest things with her little fingers but hasn't quite figured out how to transfer those tiny things to her mouth, such as pieces of bread
• She has been saying hard sounds such as dadada, mamama, bababa for a long time
• She still loves bath time
• Her blessed exersaucer is still a favorite toy of hers. She'll stay in that for up to an hour and just hang.
• She can put her binki in her mouth by herself
• She can stand on her own for about 10 seconds
• When she gets excited she flaps her arms and squawks 
• We no longer have to swaddle her when she goes to sleep. We just lay her down and she pretty much just goes right to sleep. It's a dream! We probably could have done this awhile ago but I was afraid it would take training and I'd have to get up a bunch in the night
• We don't have a good bedroom for her because of the layout of my parent's house so we've kept her in a Moses basket in the den forever! We finally moved her pack and play into the den so she can sleep in that. 
• She's not teething yet. I'm starting to wonder if she has teeth
• When she's sleepy she will actually just lay her head on my shoulder...a mother's dream!! She is a pretty cuddly baby when she wants to be.

We are having so much fun with this little munchkin. Time is passing by so quickly and I feel grateful that we've been able to watch her grow, learn and develop these last 7 months. I'm really looking forward to seeing her personality continue to develop in the next little while.