Thursday, April 23, 2015

7 months

Felicity turned 7 months old lately!
Oh how much she has grown and changed.

Gross Motor: Felicity is full of movement but not quite mobile!! She sits like a boss, she can roll over either way as she so desires. She pulls up on things - especially on people. She loves to be in a kneeling or standing position and tries to find something to pull up on to get to these positions. She goes into a half crawl position and rocks and is very close to taking off crawling. She seems to try to put her feet on the floor instead of her knees when she is trying to crawl, which obviously isnt very effective. She is so strong, and so squirmy. A lot of times if you are holding her and she wants to be moving/crawling she will just be squirming, reaching, stretching, arching, moving.

Fine Motor: She loves little details. She absolutely loves to grab my necklaces, but she doesn't yank them really. She just fingers them. She might try to slowly pull it to her mouth. She is still perfecting her pincer grip. She very carefully examines, pulls on, messes with zippers and buttons.

Speech: What a speech explosion recently!! She is starting to make real speech noises (consonants is what I should say). We get a whole lot of ah-bah bah bah bah and some ma ma ma and some dah dah dah. Its so fun to hear it! It makes her seem so much bigger than the previous pterodacytly style screams, grunts and vowel sounds.

Behavior: She has definately become more clingy in the past month. She does not like it when I walk away!! She does not like it when I hand her off to someone else if she is at all tired or has not seen me in awhile. She will still play for awhile on the floor by herself, but its best if I stay away. If she sees me and I dont stick around she might get upset. She is most interested in objects that are new to her, and/or objects she sees us using, like spoons.

Food: We started her on solids a month or so ago. Baby lead weaning. She really likes salty foods like Olives, pickles, etc. Really she will eat most anything we give her. Sometimes she makes some funny faces that make it seem she doesnt like something, but then she will keep eating it.

Sleep: Not good. I need to get her full size crib up. But if she is anything like her brother, even that won't help.

Health: She has a cold at the moment and has had a lot of issues with dry skin, but she is a happy baby!!

I am in love w this little girl. She is growing so incredibly fast and I can hardly keep up with it.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Easter 2015

Ben was so excited for the Easter bunny to come because HE LOVES CANDY.

This picture pretty much captures it:







Meanwhile Felicity is all - "yeah I will sit here and play w these plastic eggs"



Ben was REALLY bad at finding eggs. He pretty much had to fall onto one to find it. I have read about kid's brains and how they don't "scan" selectively for information, but still it was crazy how bad he was at finding these. But he had a blast doing so, and he shared his candy all on his own/voluntarily. It was super sweet.

After the Easter egg hunt we all got gussied up to go out.





Then we went to my parent's house to take some pictures. These are the best with my camera. We got some family shots and some more great ones of Felicity on my dad's better camera... but Ben didn't want anything to do more pictures.




 After the photo shoot we headed up the shore to Superior Shores to eat brunch. It was a really nice meal. Felicity tried Salami, Carrot, celery, pesto pasta, and had more green olives. She gummed the salami (a single piece) for a good half hour off and on. We had a hilarious moment where Ben, tired of trying to get his yogurt out of the cup, started scooping it with his hands (blueberry of course). I am glad I bought his outfit second hand. I think that white sweater-vest was one-time use only!! LOL.

At the end of the meal we did some socializing, until Ben started running wild. Always a queue to leave.




On the way home, everyone else napped while I drove, so I took the scenic route. Then I indulged myself by stopping at French River to feel the lake wind and snap a couple of pictures.




Back at my parent's house we wiled away the afternoon chatting, napping, and playing. It was a great day.

Easter Saturday

Felicity's first Easter!

Ben got to dye easter eggs three times - twice with my parents, then at home with us. It is very cool seeing him develop all sorts of new fine motor - he used the little wire holder to move eggs in and out of the dyes. Perfectly? No. But still quite well. When Aaron went to dye an egg with Felicity he let her get to close and she spilled the bright green dye EVERYWHERE. Its a good thing I don't love our table (and its free) because it has some stains on it now.










Then I did a quick wardrobe change and did "Felicity's first egg hunt". She really was reaching for this one egg, which I tried to make to match her outfit. She is just too cute.





We even managed to get to the park for the first time late Saturday afternoon  (just Ben and I went).






Felicity at 6 Months Old

SIZE: At her 6m Doctor's appt, they had difficulty measuring Felicity. They first said she was 25.5" long (30th percentile) and then switched it to 26.5" (69th percentile) after measuring her two more times. She is definitely outgrowing the 6m clothing. I washed what we have in 9 month but am struggling emotionally w putting  a lot of the cute 6m stuff away.

GROSS MOTOR: It is hard to believe that she has only been sitting 5 weeks. It is so normal now. She loves to stand too and sometimes when you go to put her down in a seated position she won't bend at the waste. She can roll easily front to back, but I haven't yet seen back to front. She tries to do baby sit ups, but still can't maneuver to sitting on her own. Soon. She is also just getting the concept of pulling up on things. Soon.

FINE MOTOR: She is working on her pincer grip. Sometimes she gets it, sometimes not. She has come very adept at handling toys and her pacifier and can get things to her mouth no problem. Everything goes to her mouth.

VERBAL: She likes to make raspberries even more now, and will sometimes just get to shrieking and babbling. She seems to like to babble or yell at or with Ben quite a bit.

SOCIAL: In March I posted that she didn't like to be left alone. Wow. Things change FAST. Of course she still prefers if we stick around, but I am absolutely astounded by this baby's ability to entertain herself. You sit her next to a box of toys (Duplos most frequently) and if she is clean and fed and awake, she will sit a good half hour or forty-five minutes playing on her own without caring at all if you are with her or what you are doing. Its seriously impressive. In fact, she is more likely to fuss IF she sees you. Left alone she will play longer (out of site out of mind??). When she is tired or hungry then she wants up for sure. In crowds, she prefers to be held by someone familiar, especially Mom. She also likes socializing with Ben a lot. She gets excited when he pays attention to her and shrieks and laughs and babbles. She is a happy baby and laughs a lot.

EATING: She is a distracted eater for sure these days and it can be quite aggravating and messy! Also, we have started baby lead weaning and are giving her all sorts of table foods. She especially seems to like bell peppers, apples, celery, and salty things like bacon, salami or olives. She has obviously not liked bananas (just like Ben!) and sweet potatoes. Always trying new things!!

SLEEPING: It has not been a good month sleep wise. She is cutting her first tooth and has had a lot of rough nights where I lost count of the wake ups. Two nights ago she slept 4 hr stretches and it felt like a freaking miracle. Lately I have been describing the nights she wakes only every two hours as "Acceptable". She wakes more than that and I say it was a rough night. Less than that and it was a good night.

HABITS: She loves her pacifier whenever she starts to get tired. She loves loves loves toys and will examine an object you give her for a very long time before getting board with it. She puts lots of things in her mouth. She wants to see what you have, she reaches for our phones, Ben's toys, etc. She is a happy baby. I pretty much covered it already. She entertains herself SO WELL.