7 months!

 7 months old! And so, so busy!!

Here's what our ladybug has been up to:

- crawling! She started crawling at 6 1/2 months, and pulling up on everything a couple of days after that. Needless to say, we've had to baby-proof everything super-quick. Gone are the days that I could let her alone on a blanket and expect her to stay there. 

 - Sitting up on her own! (started right at 7 months) It took her awhile to learn this trick because every time I'd try to get her to practice sitting, she'd lean forward and crawl off. Life is too exciting to sit still for this little one! I love her curiosity and how she is always wanting to be on the go! 

 - Pulling up on EVERYTHING! She prefers to be crawling or standing. Just recently has she started to like to sit. The pulling-up has led to several head-bonks a day, and I had to go and find some of those socks with the grippers on the bottom, as she is starting to take a few steps while holding on to what ever she's pulled up on. 

- Eating! She's a great eater. Another post to follow about how I'm making her food, but her current foods are carrots, green beans, butternut squash, winter squash and sweet potatoes. We've tried bananas, pears and peaches, but she really doesn't like fruit. We'll have to keep trying...I also started trying yogurt this week, but she wasn't a fan. She eats table food twice a day- I'm trying to get that to three times a day, but it's hard to fit it all in sometimes. She also loves to chew on MumMums and puffs. We're trying to incorporate drinking out of a sippy cup- sometimes she gets it. 

Other fun things this month:

- Lucy took her first plane ride to Birmingham with me! She was a CHAMP on the plane and slept the entire flight both ways! She also did great while in the airport- it was a trick, though, getting through security by myself. I think I had her stroller, her car seat, a giant bag that had her diaper bag inside as well as the Baby Bijorn....thanks to the airport security for helping me get through. But apparently, if you have a baby strapped to you in a Baby Bijorn, you look more suspicious and are subsequently subjected to having your hands swiped.....whatever. 

- Lucy was able to meet some of my good friends from college while in Birmingham! More to follow in another post about this trip- it was super fun and I was so glad we were able to go!

- We are now mostly sleeping through the night! After we got back from Birmingham, we started to cry-it-out at night for the nighttime feed. We've had a couple of nights where she'd whimper/fuss for about 2 hours. This is our second week where we're sleep training and now she'll get up maybe once a night and cry out for about 5 minutes, but then go back to sleep on her own. 

As far as sleep goes, she gets up between 6:30 and 7:00 am, and then naps about 2 hours from when she last woke up, averaging about 3 naps a day, for an hour in duration. She consistently goes to bed at 7:00pm, wakes up around 10:00pm for one last feed, and then back to sleep until the morning. 

- Lucy is such a happy baby! She's typically smiling, talking ("da-da-da") or making cute little noises. She laughs when tickled, especially those ribs! She loves it when Daddy rolls her around on the carpet and also loves when he kicks the ball with her (he holds her under her arms and swings her legs to kick the ball- she thinks this is hilarious!).

-She loves cats and dogs- she will crawl so fast to try and get to Bella, our cat. Bella doesn't really like Lucy all that much, but tolerates her. When we were in Birmingham, my friend, Melissa, has a big black lab named Knox- Lucy LOVED Knox and thought he was the best thing ever! He would nuzzle her feet and she would laugh so hard!