Autumn // 7 Months

At last, we have a "sitter" on our hands! She's not the biggest fan of sitting yet, but she can last over a minute without toppling when she wants to. It was fun to see Nicole and Austin get SO excited when she started sitting on her own.

More 7-month updates:

- She is starting to use her arms to rotate herself on the ground! So she'll probably start crawling earlier than Austin did, but later than Nicole did. I'm surprised... with how tiny she is, I thought she would be the earliest to crawl out of the three! Less body mass to lug around, ya know.

- Munching on her toes is one of her favorite pastimes.

- Still my skinny mini, barely breaking 14 pounds. Tiny girl!!!

- She has a very meek and sweet personality.

- She's a rolly polly! She loves to flip around from back to tummy, and back again.

- There is a perpetual red patch on her left cheek from where her index finger rests when she sucks her middle/ring/pinky fingers. Still going VERY strong on finger sucking.

- She LOVES to watch her siblings be silly for her, and rewards them with plenty of smiles, coos, and waving her arms and legs around in excitement. Occasional shrieks, too, but being loud isn't her style.

- She hates baths. Hates them. Likewise, she doesn't like to be in pools. She is fine showering with me, though, so that's usually how she gets bathed.

- Her bottom front teeth have cut. I think she cut her first tooth about a week before Austin cut his (although he cut 3 in a week, and had 8 by the time he turned 1. Crazy kid!). Nicole was still a gummy girl at this age. So fun seeing the differences between each kid. Anyway, you can see the teeth in the picture below! (One is further along than the other.)

- She frequently moves her jaw around to rub her freshly-cut teeth along her tongue and upper gums. I'm sure it's a strange sensation to have something there, when there used to be nothing!

- She loves to feed herself. I'm trying to use up some baby food, so I load the baby food on a spoon, and then she swipes the spoon right out of my hand so she can shove it in her mouth. She is REALLY into it. She's also really into strawberries, and bread with pesto on it. And any food she can get her mitts on, really. We have yet to find a food she dislikes, and she'll even take a lemon without a single sour face!

- She has gotten SO fast and proficient at grabbing things! Blink, and she's snatched something from you! Her favorite targets are my water bottle and the TV remote.

- When it's nap/bed time, she prefers to be held in a cradle position rather than snuggling upright against my chest. If I time her naps just right, she's out like a light in about 30 seconds of me sitting in the rocking chair and cradling her.

- She prefers being carried around and held, although she'll play on the floor for a while if I put a good toy in front of her. It has to be a good one, though.

- She already likes to yank the bows and headbands off her head and chew them. Dangit.

- I'm no longer certain about her eye color. I thought that they were blue, but now they seem more grey... maybe they'll end up being hazel, like Doug's!

She's absolutely perfect, and we're all obsessed. Love you, Tummers!

Autumn // 6 Months

This little sweet pea has been with us for half a year! She has a mind of her own, and the cheesiest little personality starting to shine through. Here's an update:

- She loves to roll around and be on her tummy.

- She has no interest whatsoever in learning to sit. Every time I try to help her practice, she puts in no effort. In her own time, that's for sure!

- We've started solids, and she enjoys every new flavor I offer her. (Pardon the orange-ish hue to her face in these pictures, she had just eaten some carrot puree before! AND I had put her down on the grass, which she did NOT like... hence the teary eyes. Oops!)

- She gets a little loopy in the evening as we get close to bedtime. She gets very giggly while getting her pajamas on, and flashes me the absolute cheesiest smiles I've ever seen from a baby. She's a hoot!

- In regards to the smiles... many of them are normal smiles, like in these pictures... but I kid you not, many others are ultra-cheesy. I cannot emphasize enough the level of cheese. Her whole face scrunches up, and she starts breathing really hard and shows off that gummy grin as widely as she possibly can. Oh, how I love it.

- Those smallest 3 fingers on her left hand are in her mouth coooonstantly.

- She loves playing with her toes!

- She will NOT sleep on-the-go. Ever. The one exception is if we are in the car and she's really tired.

- Favorite toys are her Very Hungry Caterpillar rattle and the linking rings that came with it, along with a pink cupcake-shaped teether.

- She hasn't even gained a full pound in the past 2 months, which means she's dropped down to the 4th percentile. I'm trying some things at home and will be taking her back to the doctor in 2 weeks to re-weigh her. If she's still not gaining weight, we'll probably need to run some tests to figure out why. This is new territory for me, since I've always had chunky babies with steady weight-gain.

- So ticklish!

- Loves gently playing with my hair when I'm rocking her before nap/bed time

- Also loves hanging upside down

- We love her. The end.

Autumn // 5 Months

Time for some more tidbits about our youngest, littlest sweetheart!

- HANDS. She is obsessed with them. Sometimes she'll grab a toy or her clothes and bring them to her mouth, but usually it's just her hands. Tasty hands!!!

- She's SO close to being able to "tripod" (sitting with the legs out in a "V" shape with the hands on the ground in front of her for balance). Give it another week or two, I'd guess.

- Blue eyes! We weren't quite sure before, but those eyes are definitely blue.

- Doug's sneezes scare her. Other sneezes have scared her on occasion, but Doug's sneezes always get her crying. Basically, if you have a loud sneeze, you're going to scare Autumn. Poor baby.

- I let her try some mashed banana last week. She didn't seem very impressed, but she also seems to still have some of her tongue-thrust reflex. I'm waiting another week or two to try more solids so the reflex can completely disappear and she'll be able to actually swallow her food.

- She likes being tossed in the air now, hooray!

- She found her toes this past month, and loves to grab them and wave them around (when her hands aren't shoved in her mouth, that is. Haha!)

- She's a smiley little baby with a sweet laugh, and she's ticklish under her arms and neck.

- She is now a full-blown tummy sleeper. All curled up with her bum in the air and everything. She cries if she ends up on her back while trying to sleep.

- She gets a little frantic/hyper while nursing sometimes, and holding my thumb calms her down.

- She had to learn to accept breast milk in a bottle the past month because I had to be gone a couple different evenings and couldn't take her with me. It took a few tries to get her to actually drink anything, and she's still not the biggest fan of the bottle method. That's okay baby girl, I'm not the biggest fan of pumping!

- She's rockin' a gorgeous, dark mullet at the base of the back of her head. Haha!

- She is in a phase where she does NOT like baths.

- It's fun to see Nicole and Austin interact with her! She loves to smile at them.