Elaina - 7 months

Alright. Where to start. Elaina is almost 7 months and things are changing fast! The biggest news is that she is now totally mobile! She army crawls all over the place and goes wherever she wants to go! She also gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but so far she hasn't coordinated her hands with her knees to actually do a real crawl. But it will be soon! I love that she can now go exploring on her own and check out whatever interests her. While I'm cooking dinner, I'll just set her on the kitchen floor and she cruises around checking stuff out. I love watching her see something across the room and then march on over there to check it out. The determination is so cool in little ones!! It's fun that Elaina is getting more mobile just as Spring arrived! Since she was born in the Fall, she hasn't seen much sun in her life. The last few days have been gorgeous, so we've taken lots of walks and she's had the chance to crawl in the grass and dirt and see lots of beautiful things outside. Aaahhhh, I love Spring!! Here's a picture of Ben trying to show her how to move her hands when she's on her hands and knees.

A couple of things I jotted down over the last few weeks that I want to remember:

• Her cute wimper when I'm getting ready to nurse her. If she's really hungry or tired, it's a high-pitched, half laugh/half cry type of noise. She's usually flapping her hand frantically at the same time. I love how she settles right in and starts eating as soon as she can. She sure gets down to business!
• She is always, always, always flapping an arm, opening and closing her hands, kicking her legs, or twirling her feet around and around in a circle. If she's excited about something, the movements get faster.
• She's developing an attachment to her lamb lovey. It's the same brand as Ben's Tucker. She sleeps with it always and as soon as I give it to her, she shoves the lamb's face into her mouth. The fur is already starting to get a little matted because she's always sucking or chewing on various parts of the lamb. When I pick her up out of bed, she leans over and reaches for her lamb. Ah my heart!
  
• Nicknames. We call her lots of different things, rarely just "Elaina". Here's some of the things we call her: Sis, Sissy, Tiny, Baby Jane, Lainey, Lainers, Lainey Jane, Bean, Pea. I'm pretty sure there are lots of other things too. Ben affectionately calls her "Poo" (short for Sissy Poo). Joel also calls her Swissy and Wissy.
• Her SHRILLLLL scream! She doesn't always pull out the super shrill scream, but when she does, part of me laughs because it's so cute and hilarious, but the other part of me jumps into action to make it stop!! I don't know how a human can be so shrill! It's usually because she's mad about something. Speaking of which, she has started to get mad when I walk away from her. It's amazing how fast she can start crying when I walk away. It takes 2 seconds for her to go from happy to full-on crying. Yeesh!
• Her hair. It's soooo fluffy. It sprouts out in all different directions and flows in the wind. I don't even try to tame it because the wildness is so precious. She still has some of her long baby hairs on the crown of her head and the rest is new fuzz that is getting longer and thicker.
  
• Her huffy puffy face!! Oh gosh, this might be my favorite thing she does. She scrunches up her nose and huffs and puffs. Sometimes she does it when she's frustrated but she'll also do it to mimic us. It's hilarious!
  

She continues to love her brother. Ben and Joel are her two favorite people. She's kind of hard to impress, but she is always impressed by them! She loves their high energy and is full of smiles and giggles for them! It takes a lot of work for me to make her laugh and smile without some sort of tickle, but if Joel or Ben are around, her eyes are glued to them and she loves watching what they'll do next! She smiles a lot, but to get a really big, excited smile, it takes a little extra work. She loves when Joel holds her and dances with her. She loves Joel playing peek a boo with her. And of course, anything Ben does gets a big smile and some excited kicks. Ben talks to her like she's a normal person, although he talks very gently and sweetly. He'll just be having a little conversation with her, like "Elainaaaaa, I'm just trying to give you a hug! You can't keep pulling my hair like that!" but it's all said soooo sweetly. Anything Elaina does to Ben (like pulling his hair), he smiles so big and the happiness, pride, and love just pour out of his soul! He can barely contain himself. He's a little rough with her sometimes...like we'll have to remind him to be gentle with her arms or hands. He is so proud of his little sister and he loves that she is HIS sister.

 

 

See that adoration?!?!?! GAH!!

At the doctor, she continues to be "long and lean". The doctor wants me to do a few things to try to get some more meat on her bones, but Elaina is making it difficult! We're trying to get her to take a bottle, but so far that's unsuccessful. We're also trying to give her baby food, but she's really not having much of that either. This week I decided to try some "Baby Led Weaning" and I just gave her a big chunk of banana to munch on. Then we did Avocado later in the week. That was actually pretty successful. Much of it ended up all over her and the chair, but her poop made it clear that she really did ingest a good amount of food!

I had masitits last week, which was awful. It felt like someone was slicing my nipple off with a blazing hot knife...and feeding her while I was in that sort of pain was beyond excruciating. Thankfully antibiotics made the terrible pain go away after a few days.

So far, no teeth have officially popped through, but today I noticed that her bottom tooth is showing more than it ever has before, so I expect that will come through very soon. Her sleep the last few nights has been worse than normal, so maybe the tooth explains that? Speaking of sleep....ah sleep. I wish I saw more of it....sigh. Really, I can't complain because I usually do patch together at least 7 hours...but ooooh I can't wait until I see more than 1-3 hours of sleep at a time!! She still wakes up every three hours and some nights (like the last few nights), she wakes up every 1,2, or 3 hours. I only nurse her for 10 mins and then we both go back to sleep, but stilllllllllll, I just want to sleep uninterrupted! She sleeps much less often in the Ergo than she did a few months ago. She'll still nap there if we're out and about and she's really tired. A week or so ago, I tried carrying her on my back in the Ergo. I was out doing yard work and expected her to stay awake for a while, but she fell asleep so quickly and slept for an hour while I worked! It was great!

This lady is so sweet. I'm still wrapping my head around getting to know her personality. It's so different from Ben's and I think it's a little more mysterious. I'm sensing some independence and a little gleam of mischief in this one, though! I can't wait to uncover more of her personality in the coming months as her world grows now that she's mobile!!