Seven Months and Swimming!

Well, Claire turned seven months old on Friday!  Can't believe it!  We had our "six" month photo session earlier in the week, hoping Claire would have mastered sitting up on her own, but unfortunately she's still pretty unpredictable.  If she wants to, she can, but a lot of times she'd rather be slithering around on her belly, and to get there she hits pretty hard if we aren't there to catch her. 

"I'll sit when I'm ready, right now I'm ready for lounging in the pool!"

Now that I'm a stay-at-home mom for 4 days a week by myself, we've been trying to find activities to do.  Unfortunately, Claire goes to daycare on Wednesdays, and it seems the best activities I can find like story time all happen on Wednesdays (and they're ageist and say it's 3+, but whatever).  So, on Friday we took a trip to Walmart and found a cheap little inflatable baby pool.  Turns out it's a big hit!

Another Walmart hit?  We found a cloth swim diaper!  I've been researching them and struggling to find them online in stock, and low and behold Walmart had a stock of them for $5!  I don't know how the little swimmers disposables work, but this isn't meant to catch the tinkles, just keep the poo out of the pool.  Luckily I haven't been peed on yet dragging her to and from the pool, but I'm waiting!

Awesome cloth swim diaper!  I'm glad I found this--I was not happy about the prospect of buying disposable!

So what can Claire do at 7 months?  Well, she can splash!  She also has been talking up a storm.  I swear she can say "hey" and "dada" and "baba" but she isn't really identifying with the words she says yet, so I hesitate to call these her first words.  I fully think "dada" will be  her first word, but I'm waiting until she is looking at him and says it to declare it. 

Claire shows off her mad kicking skills!

Like I said, she's still fighting the sitting up thing.  She can.  So I'm not worried about development.  She just really really wants to crawl.  Just this past week she's started to pull up her knees under her, but she's having trouble coordinating that with lifting herself up with her arms, too.  So, she's kind of like a see saw right now.  One end up, one end down.  I'm sure she'll get it.  I keep being warned that this is one milestone I don't want to wish for prematurely. 

Grandpa very graciously invited us over to swim today--of course, he got his Claire time in!

Claire ate straight veggies (and cereal and formula) for an entire four weeks.  I had planned that.  We started apples last week, but that's the only fruit so far.  No, I take that back, we tried avocado too.  And she HATED it.  I don't know that I'll try that again.  I have pears and more apples to cook up and another batch of sweet potatoes.  She definitely likes orange veggies better than green, but I'm afraid she'll turn orange so I give her green veggies every day.  She eats three square meals, plus two extra bottles a day: usually fruit is just for breakfast, unless she's been a very good girl, then I'll throw in a cube for dinner, too.  She eats 2-3 cubes plus a serving of cereal per meal.  It seems like a lot, but she's never satisfied!  We never finish a meal because she's full. 

Claire chews everything.  We still have just the two teeth, but I swear those two on top are ready to pop out any day now!

Her spitting up is getting a little better.  I've noticed improvement, but it might also be because we're getting better at catching it.  I won't say she's not still spitting up (she is, a lot) but usually when she's on her belly it's a disaster and that's been improving.  Also, now she usually burps about 30 seconds before it happens, so we have a warning.

Look at that smile!  Claire laughs and smiles all the time now.  We have a very happy baby!

Everything else is going well!  I'm a little nervous to spend the summer alone with her, but I'm confident that I can be entertaining enough.  *fingers crossed*

See you next month!