Lydia // 7 Months

Oh, precious little Baby Cakes. She's getting fun. She's starting to get really fun. I love squeaky, tiny, new babies... but I love the second half of the first year of life even more. I've always said that babies just get better and better with age, and I stand by that still.

Lydia at 7 months:

- Stubborn about new food (she pulls the most amusing faces with the majority of new flavors), but I feel like we're finally starting to pick up momentum. She absolutely refuses to let me feed her, though. If the food/spoon is in my hand, her lips are sealed. "Baby-led weaning" it is, then!

- Cut two more teeth this month! They're the teeth on either side of her top front teeth (which still show no signs of cutting through yet) so she'll be looking like a little vampire until those front teeth show up.

- Her favorite book is 5 Little Monkeys. No contest. It makes her giggle, and it's the only book she won't try to eat as I'm reading it to her.

- Her eyes might end up being just like Autumn's. I like to call them "greyzel" (a grey-ish version of hazel).

- She hasn't figured out how to crawl just yet, but she's on the brink. She has almost managed to get up on her hands and knees a couple times, and she can baaaarely scoot forwards on her tummy (or accidently backwards, haha!) if she really tries.

- Meanwhile, rolling is her primary (and only) method of getting around. She rolls and rolls and rolls. She can also rotate herself around 360 degrees on her stomach using her arms. So strong. Crawling really is imminent.

- Still loves being in the baby wrap, on the rare occasion that I still use it.

- Has a hilarious hoarse, deep cackle that she does when she's being extra-goofy.

- Austin in particular can really get her cackle going.

- Still extremely bouncy.

- Had a rough month in terms of health. Had a couple illnesses, one of which was C0VID. Yep. The illness was quite rough on her, and she wound up with eye and ear infections at the same time. Poor baby. Thank goodness for modern medicine (antibiotics).

- Really got the hang of sitting this month. Something clicked, and suddenly she was so firm and stable while sitting. Now I can put her in the grocery cart seat! Shopping just got a lot easier!

- Mama's girl. Oh yes. Still a HUGE mama's girl. She'll let Doug hold her if she's in a good mood, but for the most part... she's reaching for me. She gives me lots of snuggles, and lots of pats with her chubby little hands. Also really likes to grab the neck of my shirt and puuuuuull.

- Because of how often she's been sick in the past 2-3 months, we've developed a habit of me needing to hold her until she completely falls asleep. I keep meaning to help her learn to fall asleep without me... but I also really love the snuggles, and she's my last baby, and I don't really have any evening commitments these days (and I'm rarely pressed for time when getting her down for a nap) so... she gets to snuggle and snuggle as she falls asleep. It's good, though. Nicole and Austin got to sleep in my arms all the time, and even Autumn got more nap-in-mom's-arms action than Lydia has. I can do this for her for a while.

- She ALWAYS starts crying when I take her into her room and start getting her ready for nap time, but she calms down the moment we get settled in the rocking chair. Dark room. White noise on. Pacifier in her mouth usually, but she's actually starting to reject the pacifier. I'm hoping she doesn't end up replacing the pacifier with tons of finger-sucking. As of now, she rarely sucks her fingers.

- Down to 2 naps a day (although, let's be honest, it's been that way for over a month already. Getting that third nap in was hard!)

- This year, church happens right when she needs to take her morning nap. I take her in the mother's room (the small one with only one chair in it), turn the light off, turn some white noise on from an app on my phone, and pop a pacifier in, and she'll doze off within minutes!

- Loves getting her hands on paper, which Nicole leaves plenty of on the ground when she gets home from school.

- Is pleasantly calm when we're outside. At least, for a while.

- Still quite fussy, some days more than others. Fingers crossed, but... I feel like she's become a bit more cheerful and pleasant in the past couple days. Maybe??? Hopefully???

- "Chonky" and "Baby Cakes" are probably my top two nicknames for her right now. And Lydies, I suppose.

Ohmygoodness, I love her. Cute little chonk.