Eleanor is 7 months old… and doesn’t fit on her milestone blanket AT ALL anymore.

This little chub is 25 pounds, and let me assure you, my back KILLS by the end of the day from all the picking her up and carrying her around!

She likes ALL FOOD. Even the green beans and broccoli she cringes at and pretends not to like at first, she ends up gobbling it up. She loves to feed herself and hates being fed! She’ll grab the spoon every time and then chuck it on the floor after she realizes food isn’t coming out of it. We go through dozens of spoons a day. Her favorites are sweet potatoes, butternut squash, pears, apples, bananas, and cheerios and puffs. She gets so excited about cheerios that she flaps her arms up and down like an ecstatic little fat penguin when she sees me bringing them over to her tray. She also eyes what we’re eating at dinner at night very enviously… she’ll track the food from the plate, to the fork to our mouths and seems to say, “Why am I not eating the same thing?!” We’ve been slowing letting her try small chunks of our meals and I have yet to find anything she refuses to eat. She’ll be totally done with purees in another month or so because she just loves finger foods so much.

Eleanor still takes 2 1.5-2 hour naps a day and a little 45 minute nap in the late afternoon. She’s still in that awkward in-between stage where she REALLY needs that third nap, but has a hard time going down. But she can’t quite make it through bedtime and dinner without it! If I could extend her second nap in the afternoon, that would probably eliminate the need to have that third catnap, but I have to go pick up the girls from school, and it KILLS me to have to wake up such a happy, slumbering baby from her sweet nap!

Consequently, she went through a month-long period of randomly waking up at 1, 2, 3, or 4 a.m. for a bottle. If we skip that last catnap and just deal with her being a cranky mess until bedtime, she’ll be so tired that she’ll sleep all the way until her normal wakeup time of 6. But skipping that last nap has not been sustainable, so we’ve experimented with having her take a super short 20 minute nap for her third nap, and that seemed to get her back to a normal wake-up schedule. Still, the month was rough since we had been so spoiled for months and months with an easy baby who slept all night.

7 month comparison with Samantha, Amelia, Meredith and Eleanor:

She’s finally starting to get more hair! I love finally being able to use our massive collection of baby bows.

Eleanor loves playing with her shoes and anything within her reach (hair, toys, food). She still crawls backwards and does a little twisty thing to maneuver herself around the floor, but still hasn’t figured out how to switch into forward gear.

Her favorites are bath time (she squeals and splashes to her heart’s content in the bath), walks, the swings, watching her sisters be crazy, and school drop-off/pick-up. She smiles at everyone and eats up all the attention, which she gets a lot of because she’s such a chub and so magnetic! People can’t resist talking to her and squeezing her ankles and chubby wrists.

Such a chunky monkey.

Meredith had the same exact little lips.

She has to take a taste of everything.

Loving life!

Lots of love,

Eleanor is 6 months old!

6 month comparison– look at that round face!

At six months, Eleanor can sit up mostly unassisted, although she tends to topple over the second she sees something interesting and loses her balance.

At her 6-month check up, Eleanor didn’t so much as flinch when she got her shots. I think her chubby thighs must provide a nice layer of insulation against the needle! At 21 pounds, she’s above the 100th percentile in weight and 99th for height. She wears size 18-24 month clothing! She doesn’t seem that huge to me until I see another baby her age… she usually looks like she could eat them for breakfast.

Eleanor is still a champion sleeper, although she started waking up earlier in the morning once we got back from Hawaii. She naps three times a day and sleeps from 7 p.m. to 5:30-6:30 a.m.

Eleanor loves her shiny shoes, singing, grabbing hair, walks, chewing on toys, and all kinds of foods! Her favorite are purees that come from pouches, especially sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots and pears. She usually grimaces and tries to spit out the homemade baby food I make her in the Instant Pot, despite experimenting with different combinations of fruits and veggies and textures. I think she just likes to feed herself! If I feed her with the spoon, she’ll spend the entire meal trying to grab it out of my hand and stick it in her own mouth. Then, as soon as my back is turned, she’ll throw it on the ground. We average 5 or 6 spoons per feeding and are often out of baby spoons by the end of the day if I don’t do the dishes.

Still no teeth!

Eleanor’s absolute favorite part of the day is bath time. She flaps those fat little arms and tries to swim if we put her on her back, or splashes and giggles when she’s sitting up. Her second favorite part of the day is school drop-off and pick-up. She eats up all the attention she gets from her little perch in the Ergo carrier and gives her best coos and smiles to the teachers and other kids. No one can resist pinching her legs and cheeks.

Eleanor loves watching her sisters run around being crazy. She giggles and squeaks when they throw balls up and down or when they play peek-a-book with her.

Happy half birthday, Eleanor!

Lots of love,