Seven months

7 months old!

Our sweet Arden is, if anything, one happy girl! We are so blessed to have such a precious, content baby girl!

She’s gotten better about sitting in her car seat and stroller. She doesn’t seem to hate the car seat as much, which is really nice! I hate it when she screams all the way home in the evenings! In the stroller she likes to sit up where she can see everything going on, she is pretty content to sit and watch people, especially kids. When we are around other kids she gets so excited! She’ll just squeal and laugh, I think she’s going to be more social than her shy brother! She is sitting well in a highchair and as long as we give her puffs she is content to sit while we eat, as long as she’s not hungry!

She is eating a lot! She has 4-5 6 oz bottles a day and has oatmeal and a fruit in the morning, fruit in the afternoon and oatmeal and a veggie at night! She is a healthy eater! She likes yogurt melts and fruit puffs and has started really getting the hang of putting them in her mouth. Which means we moved up to size three diapers, however she is still wearing mostly 3-6, or 6 months size clothes. She has a couple 6-9 month things that she is wearing, but she’s still so small! I think it won’t be much longer and we will have to move up a size, though. I guesstimate she weighs a little over 16 pounds right now. I’m trying to introduce a sippy cup, but since she’s not even holding her bottle yet, we aren’t having much luck.

She’s been going to bible class for over a month now and always does great! Even if she’s sleepy when we get there she brightens up and usually doesn’t fuss or cry at all. She does very well in church service too. She is content to be held and play with her toys and books or take a nap. I think we’ve only had to take her out once and it was because she was sleepy. She’s normally not that restless. . .yet anyway!

During the week she takes 1-2 naps at school a day. Probably totally 2-3 hours a day. Sometimes she’ll cat nap at night when we get home and on the weekends she doesn’t nap very well unless she’s in our bed!

So she’s still not sleeping through the night. I hope we can work on that soon. I was really hoping to have a weekend without Stratton before we go on vacation to try and get her sleeping better, but that may not happen. She will sleep all night a night or so a week, but for the most part she’s up around 3am. With her eating as much as she is, I know she isn’t hungry! But it’s just easier to give her a bottle and then we can all go back to sleep 20 mins later. So, basically it’s our own fault she’s not sleeping though the night, but during the week and when Stratton is home is just not a good time to let her “cry it out ” and put herself back to sleep! One of these days. . . .

Arden has two teeth on the bottom now. And she loves to chew on things. I’m not real sure since she’s been sick, but I don’t think teething is going to be too bad with her. She didn’t act abnormally fussy or anything when they were coming in. But with us all having allergies and colds, it’s hard to tell for sure what symptoms were teething and which were from her cold and ear infection. She is still on zantac twice a day for reflux and also takes hydroxyzine almost everyday. I hope we can start cutting that out soon!

At seven months Arden:

• Loves (thrives) on attention. She will flirt and smile with anyone!
• Is sometimes a jabber mouth, especially in the car.
• Says “mom-mom-mom-momma” regularly, more frequently when cranky, mad or hungry.
• Major momma’s girl. It’s not uncommon for her to get upset when I leave the room.
• Enjoys her bath time, especially when she gets to bathe with Stratton.
• She is still a little snuggler, she still has to be rocked to sleep at night.
• Has to have a small blanket to rub when she gets sleepy and also does this thing where she rubs/scratches her face in between her eyes when she’s sleepy.
• Gotta watch her, she’s good at pulling hair! Ouch!
• Is content to sit in the floor and play with toys most of the time.
• She wants whatever Stratton has and isn’t afraid to take it from him!
• Rolls around to get where she wants to go.
• Favorite thing is to play/watch Stratton!