Our sweet little Melanie is so much fun right now. This is definitely my favorite age so far, though there are moments when I miss that tiny, snuggly baby that she used to be.
Our 7 month old Melanie:
- She loves sweet potatoes. She tolerates green beans and carrots. She gags on fruit blends unless they are mixed into her baby oatmeal. Don't even try the baby meats on her.
- She crawls everywhere! She knows that she can get to things she sees across the room, and sometimes she just crawls in circles for fun. Today she was crawling as fast as she could, just to see how fast she could go. Her arms usually work a little faster than her legs -- except when they don't and she face-plants. Yesterday she was chasing her shadow, which was pretty adorable.
- She can pull herself up to standing! If the thing she is pulling herself up on is the right height. If it is too tall to pull herself all the way up, she will kneel up tall. She always looks very pleased with herself when she's up.
- She has mastered the transition from sitting to crawling, and more recently, crawling to sitting. She always has a happy smile when she gets it. I love seeing her so proud of herself.
- Her favorite place in the condo is by our sliding glass door, now that I've been pulling the blinds back during the day. She watches out the window, and bonks her forehead against the glass (on accident, I think).
- She loves nursing, and if Spencer gets her out of her crib she is happy until she sees me. Then she whines and reaches for me until I'm nursing her.
- She loves rice puffs, rice crackers, and as of today, ritz-type crackers. Her fine motor skills are getting much better because of it!
- Sometimes she will give her stuffed animals happy hugs (especially a little beany baby lamb from our neighbor, Sister Graham).
- She likes to follow me around the house during the day. If I'm in the kitchen, she pokes her head around the corner to find me. If I'm in the laundry room, she's right behind me. If I'm vacuuming, she's chasing the vacuum around the whole living room. She's my little buddy.
- She loves when Spencer comes home. When she hears the door open, she looks toward the noise and usually keeps watching until he comes into view. Then she cracks a big grin for him and wants him to pick her up.
- She loves to bounce up and down or take steps when someone holds her hands.
- She likes to be held and will crawl over to us when she wants us to pick her up, but she doesn't snuggle. She's very wiggly and squirmy, but likes to wiggle and squirm in someone's arms.
- She has made more than one bare-buns run for it in the middle of a diaper change.
Even though I haven't blogged for a few weeks, the list above gives a pretty accurate view of what's been going on. Melanie keeps us busy and happy.
We've been doing a few things outside of our normal routine. We found a daycare for Melanie and have arranged for her to go there in May when my classes start. Spencer will finish his semester in June and will watch her for the rest of the summer, then she'll go back to daycare at the end of August. I'm relieved to have found something. I'm going to have a harder time with her going to daycare than she will.
We applied for some on campus family housing that I found out about from my friend Rachel. It's new and looks really nice. Plus, it's just across the parking lot from the health professions building, where we will both have our classes. I hope we get into it, but we won't find out until May.
I filed our taxes already! I usually wait until the last week, but I did it a month early this year. My goodness, I hate filing taxes. I just get crabby trying to find all the documents and understand all the questions. On the positive side, we have a good size return coming in a week or two. Now we can buy plane tickets to Patrick and Ashley's wedding this August and save the rest! We might splurge and go on a date or something one night, too.
I feel like I did something else, too, but I don't remember. Oh, I finally made my blog book for the first year of this blog. That was a nice excuse to not do other stuff. :) I'll order it when a good coupon comes along. It's waited for 3 year, so it can wait a few more months to be printed. Plus, we don't have a bookshelf to display it on anyway.
We went to Minneapolis, and I need to write a separate post about that. It was a lot of fun, and I'm not sure why I haven't blogged about it. I'm in a blogging slump! I need to get back into it, or I'll miss all the small things that we do. Life is good right now. We're happy. Spencer is studying hard. Melanie is learning and growing so fast. And I'm watching it all happen. I guess I'm learning and growing in my own ways, but they are harder for me to see. It's late, and I should go to bed. Pictures to come. I'll post a notice when I add them to all my posts. :)
