Janie Caroline is 7 months

April 20, 2011

Another month has raced by and our little girl is 7 months old. Miss Janie is in a fun stage of her development. She LOVES to play!! Being able to sit up and play has helped a lot in her independent play. We are very thankful for this...

She will sit and explore all of the things placed around her, really anything she can get her hands on, and if Clara is interested in it too, it is all the more enticing. She still likes being in an exersaucer and occasionally playing under her baby gym, too. Tummy time is still her least favorite activity and while it seems like we are getting closer, the rolling just isn't happening. When we try to encourage her, we get a taste of her temper and watch her sweet smiles turn into downright angry screeches in a flash.

Over the past month, Janie has been exposed to lots of new foods and outside of cereal made with formula (she seems to detest every type we have offered her) she enjoys them all. She especially likes carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, green beans and any fruit we have presented. Right now she has solids twice a day and gets at least one of them from Daddy. Now when he comes home she lights up with excitement and anticipation of the upcoming meal, and of course the fun play. Janie is still a Mommy's girl, especially at night, but this has allowed Mommy to get out of the house in the evenings without too many tears.

Lil' Gem's sleep isn't as consistent at seven months as we had hoped. Some nights she will sleep up to six hours straight while other nights she will be up to eat every two hours. The past few weeks she has been better about taking her daytime naps, but now often wakes up and is ready to play at 4:00 am. Then we finally get her back to sleep around 6:00, close to the time that Clara gets up, so Mommy often functions on 4 hours of sleep. This mommy loves her sleep so we are considering doing some sleep training pretty soon.

One of the most noticeable change in the past month is Miss Janie Bug's babbling. She has always had a large repertoire of noises, but now makes the same sounds over and over in her adorable baby talk. And where Clara said "Da-da" first, Janie most frequently says "Ma-ma" or "Ah-ma". What a delight it is to hear those sweet sounds!

We continue to attend playgroup and Janie has started interacting with other babies her age. She really loves the songs we sing with the group. She perks up when she recognizes them and so we end up singing them at home a lot too. When she is fussy, she can easily be distracted by these songs. One of her favorites, Wheels on the Bus, was one of Clara's early favorites too. Now, Clara joins in and we all entertain Janie with songs.

Along with the play, our lil' Gem is developing a sweet little sense of humor. And what a heartwarming laugh she has! She likes to play Peek-a-Boo (even doing her own covering and uncovering), giggles at silly faces and sounds, belly laughs when we do raspberries, and even joins in just because Clara is laughing at something. With each passing week our girls' relationship continues to evolve. Clara is now less interested in just nurturing her little sis and instead works to engage her or tries to involve her in whatever game we are playing. For example, when she pretends to be Rapunzel, she insists that Janie be her chameleon sidekick, Pascal. Way more interactive play takes place between the two of them than I would have ever expected at this point.

Janie at seven months really is a lot of fun and makes the lack of sleep of easier to deal with!