7 months!

Claire at 7 months:

Development -  We've got sitting mastered.  There's been rapid development from sitting up to being able to lean over and reach, to getting on all fours and rocking back and forth, to crawling movements.  She's still in the experimental stage with crawling.  So we see a little army crawling, some rocking on all fours, and even a few "crawls" before she collapses. At the same time she also really wants to pull up on things.  We don't have a lot of things that are a good height for her to do so.  So has used the Fisher Price sing along stage to pull to standing on.  Yikes! She can now move her arms in an up and down swinging motion good for ringing a bell or whacking objects on the floor or table.

Play -She can "play independently" for a few minutes now.  Also known as "entertain herself with an activity for more than 2 seconds."  We recently got a big rug for our sun room to make it a nice playroom, so now she's got a room all to herself and her toys.  She's becoming more vocal.  We went through a fake coughing spell and we're getting lots of babbling.  She also likes to make some really loud noises, kind of like she's yelling.  She thinks it's really funny if we "yell" back at her.

Eating - She had her first yogurt and that went down well.  We introduced a few finger foods just to see how she did.  Now she prefers those to purees.  I am afraid all this baby food in the cabinet and the homemade stuff I whipped up and froze may not get eaten!  But I've learned a few tricks.  I can sneak some in when she's feeding herself and opens her mouth to put something.  And someone suggested using the purees as a "sauce" for pasta so we'll try that.  But I've also discovered that the hungrier she is, the more likely she is to eat the purees.  I've recently started giving her bottles more often rather than nursing as she is less distracted that way and I can see how much she's actually eating. 

Sleep - In bed by 7:45/8:00, up between 7:30 and 8:30.  Usually 8 to 8.  Two naps most days unless we screw her up by dragging her around with us on errands. 

And we did have a week or two where she was fussy in the mornings so we reintroduced the swing to help calm and quiet her.  Turns out it may have been that she was hungry.  A few bottles of milk during the day helps make sure she is getting enough so she can be our happy little clam.