7/17 It's a good thing I have monthly updates on my schedule, or I wouldn't have gotten any journaling done this month at all! And so much has happened!
Maia is seven months now! She has been introduced to solid foods... and is not impressed. The first time I gave her bananas and peaches, her whole body shuddered and she basically raspberried it all out. Just pthbbbbbtttt. It was hilarious and definitely didn't make me any more excited about the solid food process. I am a lot more laid back than I was with the other two. I'm just mushing things up for her instead of buying baby food and throwing it out like I did for DZ. She's had bananas, peaches, oatmeal, avocado, peas, and sweet potatoes. She still dislikes the bananas, but she opened her mouth for three bites of the peas! And she seemed to like peaches after that first introduction, especially when mixed with oatmeal. I have given her just normal oatmeal, as well as sprinkling a little of the baby oatmeal on the mushy foods. Jennifer gave her a strawberry at Serenity's birthday, and she loved that. Jen said she has a tongue thrust, which is why I'm having trouble getting food in her. With Casey they actually had to push his tongue down to help train him not to do that. And my niece had to train herself with tic-tacs not to do that because her teeth were getting messed up by it. So we'll see. She's only opened her mouth wide enough for three bites in the last month, other than that I've snuck things in. She's not spitting everything anymore so that's progress ;)
Maia is starting to try to crawl. She just has that gleam in her eye that tells you she's thinking about going after things. So far no forward movement (or backward, which is what comes first in my experience.) She can roll all over the place to get places, and she often dives forward from a sitting position to get stuff. She sits very stably now and adores the jumperoo. She has outgrown the swing but I haven't entirely given it up yet. Hard to say goodbye to our best sleeping friend =)
She has added a few more syllables to her babbling. She says mamamamama now, and she can do N's. So with her dadada and bam sounds she's really getting ready to talk! =) So exciting! She also occasionally shrieks which it's sooo hard not to laugh at. But I think she can tell I'm amused even when I do manage to stifle the laughs so she persists.
She's still a very laid-back, happy baby. Full of smiles. =) She's getting a little bit more attached to Mama, which is a little earlier than the other two but not unexpected. Still no teeth. Fine by me =) She only wants to nurse on one side so I have to be sneaky about getting her to use the other when she's sleepy at night or when she first gets up from a nap. She loves watching her big brother and sister and they adore her. Getting Maia to smile or giggle is a daily activity for them. Serenity really wants to hold her and carry her around, so she's been carefully practicing that.
She has a few favorite things right now, including the blue rattle with all the beads we got from Gymboree, the cat pacifier, chewing on the Little People zoo animals, chewing on board books, and her Jungle tails soft book that has crinkly sounds and animal tails in different textures. She likes to listen to board books but grabs them to eat them, so I usually start one and then switch to another when she wrestles the first one away from me. Donovan recently made her a toy, a dr. pepper bottle filled with ribbons, that she loves. So we pulled out the one Serenity made Donovan when he was a baby, which was filled with colored paper. So cute!
