Seven Months

This is the best picture I could get of Juliet and her 7 months sticker

So this entry is about a week late.  I apologize for my tardiness, but things have been a little nuts around here.  Ray has to travel for work, and we've been trying to get everything in order for him to leave town.  And when we weren't running around like chickens with our heads cut off, we were trying to just enjoy the little bit of family time we could snag.  It's so strange to me.  I used to think I had very little free time.  Then, we had Juliet, and I truly understood what it meant to have no free time.  Between working a full time job and being a mom, I've come to believe that there really are just not enough hours in the day.  Don't get me wrong: I love my child and my job, but it would really be awesome if I had about two more hours a day... Or if I could function at the same level with two hours less sleep.  Oh well.  I wouldn't trade it for anything!

At seven months, we've had a lot of new developments!

• Juliet weighs a little more than 17 pounds and is 25 inches long.
• She is mobile and therefore no longer trustworthy.  We can't put her down and trust that she'll be in the same place for more than three seconds.
• She's had several growth spurts lately that have made her a little fussy.
• She is extremely interested in both Ninja and Filch and wants to grab and taste both of them.  Ninja is much more patient than Filch.
• She is progressing sloooowly with solids and seems to really like apples.
• She can roll over in her crib now and crawl around in it.
• She uses what I call the inch worm method to get wherever she wants to go.
• She has all the pieces of standing, but she hasn't quite put them together yet.
• She likes to sleep on her side.
• She seems to be showing signs of separation anxiety.
• She literally changes in a matter of days, and it's amazing to see!

In the next post, I'm going to upload of video of Juliet using her inch worm method to get where she wants to go, but I bet that she will be actually crawling very, very soon.  In the last 36 hours, she has started moving her hands and arms when she is trying to get somewhere at a leisurely pace, so I imagine it's only a matter of time before that becomes her preferred method of movement.

On Saturday morning, I got up to make breakfast, and I heard Juliet in her crib.  Since she was happy, I thought I'd get the coffee started before going in to get her.  45 seconds after I made that decision, I heard a loud, steady thumping coming from her nursery.  I ran to see what was going on, worried that she'd somehow stuck a leg or arm through the spindles and gotten stuck.  Nope.  She had crawled to the foot of the crib and was swatting at the baby monitor to try to pull it down so she could chew on it.

We're working on teaching her to be gentle with Ninja and Filch.  I'm not sure she's going to get it any time soon, but I don't think it'll hurt to start trying to teach her that now.  She is fascinated by them both, and she wants to touch/grab/taste them any chance she gets.  Ninja is pretty patient and will take it for a few minutes before finally moving.  Filch is not so tolerant.  Let's be honest here, too.  Filch isn't exactly a nice kitty all the time anyway.  And he is definitely not a morning kitty and doesn't do well when you wake him up.  So I try to allow Juliet to pet him with a lot of help and supervision in case he decides to go all tiger on her.

This month has had such fun changes and developments.  I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

This is why the shot of Juliet and the 7 months sticker is just me holding it... She wanted to eat it instead of wear it.

Ninja is a good girl.