Eleanor 7 Months

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,

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Everyday January

Eleanor tried lots of new foods in January! Green beans are not her favorite, but everything else she gobbles up. I’ve been experimenting making baby food in the Instant Pot… she still prefers store-bought pouches because she can feed herself.

GIVE ME THE SPOON.

 

 

January alternated between lovely, sunny days and freezing, rainy ones.

We attempted to teach Meredith the concept behind leapfrog.

She decided riding on her sisters was more fun.

Eleanor giggles at her sisters’ antics.

Every night before bed, Meredith asks to give Eleanor a little hug. She’s been begging to let Eleanor sleep in her room too, but that won’t happen for a while.

Rest stop on a hike.

Perfecting magnatile towers.

On one rainy Saturday, Jake took the girls to do crafts at Home Depot. They were proud of their Valentine’s box creations.

Eleanor continued to crawl backwards and even learned to spin around, but still didn’t quite get how to crawl forwards.

The girls created a car for themselves out of a huge box and styrofoam.

Meredith loves to fill the basket in her bike with random toys to bring to the park.

Samantha and Amelia went to Harper’s birthday party at Zoomars and spent almost the entire time feeding and petting every single guinea pig.

We had one week that was straight up torrential downpours every day. After school one day, I announced we were having a read-a-thon. I had to explain what that was a million times, but the girls eventually went along with it. We pulled out all of our bins of books and binge-read picture books all afternoon.

Eleanor’s favorite toys.

Playdate with Maple and Gavin inside on a rainy day!

Wearing one of Maple’s old size 2T sleepers!

We got to meet Amy’s new baby– sweet Carter!

Meredith’s playgroup for 2016 babies. Many of the moms also have 2018 babies like Eleanor, so both toddler and babies have some friends!

Art and projects from school this month:

At teacher conference, Samantha and Amelia’s teachers showed me the little word books they’ve done recently and said how impressed they were by the drawings! I’d say those are pretty detailed for a five-year-old!

 

We practiced catch and batting to get ready for the upcoming softball season. Hit a home run, Amelia!

 

Lots of love,

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