Claire turned 7 months old last Monday! It really blows us away how quickly each month flies by now and clearly, the blog has been suffering a bit lately. I keep wanting to get better about posting but there are simply not enough hours in the day.

So, here’s a rundown of 7 month old Claire:

• Weight: Probably around 17 pounds. We think she had a growth spurt recently because she is looking so big and so long!
• Loves:
  • Crawling EVERYWHERE!! She is so speedy and loves to explore.
  • Pulling herself up to stand.
  • Grabbing for anything and everything that is in reaching distance and putting it in her mouth.
  • Apples! We finally found a food that she loves. She also is OK with pears and we fed her a strawberry, banana, and peaches mixture tonight and she loved that too! She’s definitely getting more used to the food concept.
  • To scream/talk (a happy scream).
  • To pinch my arms while I’m breastfeeding her, not sure why but she loves it. Think of it how a cat kneads on things, it’s sort of like that. Must be comforting for her.
  • Still loves her baths! Now that she’s a pro at sitting, she hangs out in there and splashes around with her toys and has an all around party in the bath. She now gets upset when it’s over.
  • Being held… unless she’s in the mood to crawl. 😉

• Hates:
  • Diaper changes.
  • Being put down to sleep in her crib (most of the time, sometimes she’s so tired she doesn’t care)
  • When Mommy leaves the room – she’s now aware of when I’m leaving even for a short period of time and starts to cry. It breaks my heart. 😦

• Talents:
  • Crawling. She’s basically a pro at it now and can get across the room in less than 10 seconds.

• Pulling herself up to stand (holding onto things with two hands and just recently with one hand!!).

• Sleeping:
  • She stopped sleeping through the night two weeks ago and has been on and off since then. CJ went on a business trip at that time and I think she missed her Daddy too much to sleep contently. We also suspect she’s been going through a growth spurt. We try to put her down between 8/9 but she’s been waking up around midnight, 1 or 2 and sometimes won’t go back to sleep without snuggling with us. We try to be strict about keeping her in her crib but sometimes co-sleeping is the only way to calm her down. To be honest, I’d rather her get a full night’s sleep than force her to cry for hours to teach her to fall asleep in her crib. Hopefully, she’ll go back to sleeping through the night soon.
• Firsts:
  • Her first Thanksgiving was so fun! Our cousins adorable daughter who’s three months older than Claire was over for Thanksgiving and they loved playing together. They crawled around, explored the air vent in my parent’s living room, and shared a teething necklace. I think the cutest moment was when our cousins daughter fell after standing up, started crying, and Claire started crying because she was sad for her. It was so sweet! For her first Thanksgiving meal, she enjoyed some pears and carrots.
  • Last weekend, we brought her to see snow and Santa for the first time! She was fascinated with the snow and interested in Santa. She stared at Santa for a while and examined his beard before determining that no, she did not know this man and that’s when she decided it was time to go back to Mommy and Daddy.

• Other Random Facts:
  • Two weeks ago (or so), we picked up Claire at the gym daycare after our workout and the lady watching her if she was normally in the 1 year old room because she’s so advanced. I told her that she was only 6 1/2 months old and she looked so surprised. We have a little genius on our hands! Oh dear… I’ve become “that” mom. 🙂

• Her personality is definitely coming out more and more and, according to my mom, she’s exactly like me. She’s (very) opinionated, happy, and super super active.
• She’s growing more hair! It’s so cute and fuzzy.
• She still has blue eyes. We’re still waiting to see if they’ll change.
• She just started wearing 9M clothes. I was a little sad to see how well they fit her when we started dressing her in them… another reminder how quickly she’s growing!

And that’s our little Claire! She is all over the place lately which has been exhausting but SO much fun! I hope everyone has fun plans for the holidays. We are SO excited for Claire’s first Christmas.