Happy 7 Months Miss Natalie!

It's hard for me to keep up with this girl!  She is so busy and is trying so hard to keep up with her big sister.  The last month passed so quickly and it's hard for me to believe that it's time to write yet another update!!

Here are some of the months milestones that haven't been previously blogged about (check out my Top 5 Saturday Laughs)

• Natalie is a professional army crawler/swimmer.  She looks to be swimming as she stretches her arms out to get places.  She is up quite a bit on her hands and knees but is faster with the army crawl so prefers that method at this point.

• There is absolutely no more sit and play with this girl.  She has figured how to get from a sit to her belly and back to a sitting position again.  I was really hoping for a long stay a the sit and be content to play with a toy stage.

• She has a very strong opinion at what she wants to play with.  If you take something away, she lets you know that she wasn't done with it yet.  She also watches where you hide things that she shouldn't be playing with in hopes of taking them back.

• Natalie loves to play with Claire.  If Claire leaves the room, Natalie goes after her.  When Claire comes back, Natalie squeals in delight.

Playing on the 'couch bed' together

• Baby purees are out of the question for this girl.  She would eat at most 10 bites of peas or peaches.  Everything else was about 3 bites. Over the last week and a half we have been experimenting with soft solids.  She absolutely loves eating real food and especially loves feeding herself.  She has now had mandarin oranges, avocado, peas, carrots, green beans, bananas, strawberries, mac and cheese (noodles cut in thirds), yogurt and puffs.  She likes sitting down for dinner with us now.  I am so thrilled, baby food was a battle for a month or so!

• She is becoming more vocal when Claire is around.  It is almost like she is trying to talk to her sister.  However, she jabbers much more when Claire isn't around (probably since it's hard to get a word in edgewise).

• She has tried to pull herself to stand a couple times.  That freaks me out too much, she can't be old enough to do that already, right?

We are still waiting (not so patiently) for a couple milestones:

• Sleeping through the night.  This is honestly getting worse.  The majority of the nights we are now up twice instead of once.  I pray nightly that she sleeps until 5:00 am.  I am at a loss on this one.  We have tried multiple theories, so if you have helpful and practical suggestions - let me hear them!

• Those two bottom teeth!  Poor thing is a drool-ball and chews on everything in site.  They're not far off I would guess that by the next post she won't be toothless any longer.