Clarke Family Adventures: 7 Months!

On November 22 our little Ceci girl turned 7 months! This post is long overdue, but with good reason - we're currently in America visiting family and having a super (and very busy) time! More to come about our adventure, including a long-haul flight, meeting lots of family, Thanksgiving and Ceci's baptism, in another post!

The picture above was actually taken 5 days early (the day we left for the US!) so we could keep the continuity of location and bear comparison, but here's a picture on her actual 7 month birthday:

At 7 months Ceci is...

So close to crawling! She gets up on all fours and rocks, picks up her hands and shuffles her knees, even reaches for and picks up toys with one hand, but she's yet to make any forward progress without resorting to putting her belly on the floor and army crawling. But she's so close!!

Confident sitting up all by herself - not more slouching or random tumbling onto her face or back!

LOVING her swimming lessons. After screaming through most of the first lesson, she's now a total little fish!

Moving like crazy. She army crawls and rolls all over the place - if she wants to get somewhere or get her hands on something (especially things that aren't toys) she finds a way to make it happen, and fast!

Still LOVING food. This girl will try anything and seems to be a bottomless pit - during most meals she eats longer than anyone else at the table! She's tried chicken, fish, beef, potatoes, all sorts of veggies and fruits, oatmeal, wheat toast, pasta with sauce, beans, yogurt, hummus...the list goes on and on...and she loves it all! Her favorites are probably any type of really ripe fruit (mango, peach, avocado, and pear especially) and all things carb (she's definitely my child). And she's completely self-fed, we've never spoon fed her or given her purees except mixed into oatmeal or pasta or spread on toast. She also loves to make a big mess which makes for lots of good photo opportunities - I'm hoping to post an eating update post with lots of food pictures soon. She also loves drinking water out of her sippy cup and can do it all by herself. She's one independent little lady!

Still nursing 4-6 times a day + drinking a bottle of breastmilk after dinner, and still sleeping relatively well. Getting her to stay asleep in her crib can be a bit of a challenge some nights, especially before midnight, but most nights she's been waking only once or twice before 11pm and then sleeping straight through from then until about 7. We'll take it!

Teething. Again. Her two bottom teeth are completely in and we think the top two are on their way soon as she's back to drooling A TON and chewing on anything in sight, especially her hands.

Slightly addicted to her paci. It used to be solely for sleeping but in the last couple weeks with teething causing lots of fussiness she seems to want it more during the day. But she's a total pro at finding it and putting it in her mouth all by herself which is really fun to watch (and a blessing in the middle of the night!) Hoping this habit won't be too hard to break eventually...

So expressive. She smiles with her whole face and clearly lets you know when she's not pleased. She's also started really babbling now, really enjoying the B sound at the moment - lots of BABABA, withing the occasionally dadada or bumumumum.

She's definitely staring to show her rather big personality and she's a silly, sweet, demanding, sociable, willful little girl. And we just love her to bits!!