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Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today is about more than just Valentine’s Day around our house. A certain someone is 7 months old today! She is now more than half way through her first year of life. Hard to believe how quickly the time is going by. I’m still looking for that pause button so I can slow things down a bit.
Weight: ~ 15.5 lbs
Height: ~ 26 inches
Anna is my little peanut. She is only just now starting to out grown some of her 3-6 month clothing. She is in a few 6-9 month pants and pajamas, still mostly 3-6 month shirts. It is going to be interesting to see how her size differs from Maya as she gets older. Right now she is quite a bit smaller than Maya was at this age, about an inch or so shorter and a couple of pound lighter.
Don’t let her size fool you, the girl loves to eat. She is still breastfeeding like a total champ. She eats on average every 2-3 during the day and goes about 12 hours at night (gotta love a baby that sleeps 12 hours straight at night!). She is also eating solids now and does really well with them. Her favorites are sweet potatoes and white beans, green beans and peas, pears, apples, peaches and prunes. The sweet potatoes and white beans meal is by far her absolute favorite, she opens her mouth super wide once she knows that is what is for dinner and she gobbles it up faster than any other food. She isn’t a fan of any food that isn’t very pureed. I tried to give her mashed avocado the other day and she chocked on it and made herself throw up because it wasn’t pureed. I’ve also tried a few pieces of very mushy banana and she does the same thing. The net feeder has come in handy for her since she doesn’t seem to tolerate chucks of any kind. She has had bananas and peaches in it and loved them, especially the peaches. We’ll stick with purees for now and keep trying to introduce chunkier food and just see how it goes.
This is such a fun baby age. She is learning so many new tricks so quickly. I swear everyday she has some new trick she is showing off. Right now she is all about chattering away and loves to keep me entertained by talking away with me while I’m making dinner. She loves her jolly jumper and spends a little time every day bouncing around in it while squealing with delight. She has just recently started to get mad if a toy she wants is out of her reach so I’m guessing over the next month or two we’ll probably have a mobile baby as she figures out if she moves she can reach that toy she wants.
Anna is still my peaceful, content, easy going baby. She melts my heart with her adorable smiles. She makes my heart swell with love when she nestles into me for a little snuggle. She makes my heart smile with her squeals, coos and adorable little “mum mum” sounds. Love you baby girl and can’t wait to see what the next month brings.
When Maya was about 4 or 5 months old she developed an affinity for bouncing. My arms were not prepared for the endless jumping and bouncing, it was quite an arm workout. Given her love of jumping and bouncing we figured she would be a big fan of a doorway jolly jumper so we picked one up at our local baby retailer. We were right, she LOVED it. It was hard to get her to stop using it. At almost 2 she would still ask me to put it up so she could bounce and swing around.
It was no surprise when Maya wanted us to bring out the jolly jumper for Anna when she was still to young to even hold her own head up for any length of time. I started putting Anna in the jolly jumper for short bursts when she was about 4 months old. She wasn’t a big fan at first. Eventually she started to enjoy sitting in it but hadn’t really figured out that she could make the thing move. I would bounce it a little for her and she seemed to like that, but if left to her own devices she would just stand there with this look on her face like “What exactly is the point of this thing?”.
Then all of sudden one day she just figured it out. I put her in the jolly jumper and she immediately started bouncing, jumping and spinning around. She was completely delighted with herself. She looked at me like “Mom, why didn’t you tell me this thing was so much fun?” 
Now she loves going in the jumper. She’ll squeal when she sees me putting it up in the doorway and can jump like nobody’s business.
It is so cute to watch her jump away, it reminds me so much of her big sister at this age. Maya gets a huge kick out of watching Anna jump away too.
Anna has entered a very vocal stage. Since she has been such a quiet baby I wasn’t sure what to expect from her as she entered the more vocal babbling stage of babyhood. Though she is still a pretty quiet baby things have certainly gotten a lot louder around this house lately.
She has discovered a lot of new sounds and plays with a lot of different sounds. Her preferred form of vocalization is still squealing, however, she has discovered that she can make her voice very, VERY loud so the squealing around these parts has reached new ear-piercing levels. My favorite is when she decides to wake in the middle of the night and squeal to herself for close to an hour (can you sense the sarcasm).
Over the last couple of weeks she has really started to discovered a lot of new noises and sounds she can make and spends much of her day practicing one form of verbalization or another. Today it has been all about “mmmmmmma mum”. Yesterday it was little fake coughs over and over and over again. A few days ago she was all about blowing raspberries.
You should see the delight on her face when you copy a sound back to her. You can just see her thinking “Hey, that is the sound I just made!!”
Maya was a very vocal baby. She switched from cooing to babbling very early. By 4 months she was babbling with ma, ba, da, and ga. Anna has been a much quieter baby. She spends a lot of time observing and absorbing what is going on around her in her quiet little way. I love all the new little sounds she has developed. I love how she creates this perfectly adorable mix of peacefulness and sweet little babbling and crazy loud squealing as a soundtrack to her day.
I leave you with a small taste of Miss Anna’s crazy loud squealing. Happy Weekend
Look who is looking at the world from a different perspective these days.
She still isn’t super stable sitting up on her own, and in the blink of an eye she will topple over. But, each day she seems to be sitting up better and for longer before she face plants.
The girl likes to keep us on our toes with a little game she has developed to make sitting practice more fun. She loves to throw herself back as fast as she can. If we don’t have a pillow, or ourselves, behind her she would smack her poor little head super hard. You can’t see it coming either. She’ll be sitting smiling, reaching for things, having fun and then in the blink of an eye she has flung herself back and is giggling at herself. Luckily, we’ve avoided injury by always making sure that there is something, or someone, behind her.
I can’t believe she is already old enough to be sitting up by herself. She is my little big girl.
Anna celebrated her half birthday over the weekend. That’s right, my baby girl is already 6 months old. It feels like she just joined our family but at the same time I can’t remember life without her.
6 Month Stats:
Weight: 14lbs 15oz (28th percentile)
Height: 25 3/4 inches (50th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 1/2 inches ( 34th percentile)
I cannot even begin to find the words to tell you how absolutely incredible Anna is. If you were to send up an order for the perfect baby it is quite possible you would end up with Anna. She is just so good and so happy all the time. The girl loves her sleep and takes at least 2 really good naps every day and sleeps 11-12 hours straight at night. She radiates peace and joy. It doesn’t really matter what she is doing she is pretty much always content and happy (unless you keep her up past her bedtime, of course!). She brings out the best in people. You can’t help but smile in her presence, as a smile lights up her whole face and she babbles or squeals or giggles away. Her sister is completely enamored with her and she with her sister. Watching the two of them interact is often the highlight of my day, they are so cute together.
Anna has “grown up” a lot this past month. She has become quite the skilled little baby. She is sitting for short periods on her own and every time she practices sitting she seems to get better and better at it. Toys are her new best friends, she definitely has her favorites, but she hasn’t met a toy she doesn’t like yet She can reach for things so well now and pass toys back and forth between her hands. It is so cute to watch her hand movements becoming so much more deliberate and controlled. Gone are the days of just swiping at things, now if she see something she wants she doesn’t whatever she can to get it. Her tummy time is becoming more fun since she can pull things towards herself to play with now and has so much more head control. Her “talking” abilities have really grown this month too. We are hearing more consonant sounds like ba, ma, etc. and she is learning to blow raspberries and make funny sounds with her mouth.
Breastfeeding is still going really well. She eats on demand, usually every 2-3 hours, during the day and, as I mentioned early, is going about 12ish hours at night. We just started solids and though she isn’t a big fan we’ll keep trying. She did enjoy the bananas she had last week but wasn’t too fussy on the squash or peas. I’m guessing she is going to more a fruit girl like her big sister.
I love this age. It is so fun to watch them grow and change as they begin to more aware of the world around them and develop a desire to explore their little world. I know this next month is going to see a lot of changes again. It will be interesting to see what she is like as she turns 7 months old.
Love you bunches my beautiful baby girl