The Guldan Life: 7 Months

What a fun, busy month! From a visit form Grandma and Grandpa, a vacation, and Emmeline starting school, it was a whirlwind and in the meantime Corabelle mastered some new things!

While movement is still not a top priority for Corabelle, she has been working on her sitting all month. From all of a sudden on her 6 month birthday being able to sit for a few seconds unassisted, she's now a rockstar. I *almost* trust her without the boppy when I walk away. She loves to sit and play with her toys and look around. Rolling is still not of interest, although I'm sure she can do it. She'll often roll all the way to her side to see things and then back, which means she's often in a different position than I left her. Tummy time still not a favorite, but when big sis is a round it's at least tolerable for a little bit.

She's still just the happiest baby there is. So many smiles and laughs, loves to be tickled, sung to, and play "this little piggy". Big sister gets the most smiles, of course, and Emmeline continues to be a sweet sister. It's fun to see them interact more now that Corabelle is a bit more active. Emmeline loves to give her hugs and kisses as soon as she gets back from school, and she is eager to give her a new toy when she starts fussing. We think Corabelle likes to give her own "kisses" by eating people's mouths and faces--it's become a very common occurrence!

Corabelle is very vocal, lots of babbling (starting to use more consonants), and she's also started grunting and squawking when she really wants to let us know something or is very excited. Usually, these grunts and squawks are reserved for Emmeline or when she sees someone else eating and she's not!

Speaking of eating, Corabelle loves food! Much like Emmeline at this age, there isn't anything we've given her that she hasn't liked. She likes all fruits and vegetables, but apples, bananas, broccoli, and sweet potato seem to be favorites. Once again, I'm amazed at how the Baby Led Weaning process works. It's been so cool to see her go from barely being able to pick things up, missing her mouth, and not actually eating anything to mastering how to pick up different textures and actually ingest some food. All in just a month! Sadly, though (at least for me), our nursing journey seems to be coming to an end. Corabelle has become increasingly difficult to feed, needing a quiet, dark room, and even then only wants a few minutes at a time. Eventually she'll become so hungry that she won't even latch because she's mad (she's got quite the temper when she's upset), and the bottle is the only thing that will calm her down. Though this makes me sad, it's best that she's happy and fed, and I think it's better for Emmeline too, as she's been suffering a bit from the lack of attention just on her, I think. Can't say I'll miss the fight to try and get her to latch when she's screaming, though.

It's official, she finally loves the pool! In the float, or in our arms, she's happy kicking and swimming around for a good 30 minutes now! Yay!! Makes pool outings so much easier now. Wish we could say the same about bath time... She also loves her jumperoo, tags on toys and clothes, and books.

Naps have been kind of all over the place this month, probably due to visitors and traveling, but toward the end of the month, we seem to have found a new norm with some solid longer naps of an hour or more (sometimes 2 longer ones in a day!). She's pretty solidly on 3 naps a day, about 2-2.5 hours between naps with a bit longer after her last nap before bedtime. It certainly makes it easier having somewhat of a "schedule" now. Of course, sometimes she has to nap on the go with Emmeline around, which makes things a bit tricky. Luckily, she still seems to sleep fine at night even if her naps aren't perfect: typically 6:30/7pm-6:15/6:45am.