Wow has this last month gone fast! Gracie continues to knock down milestone after milestone while continuing to be the happiest girl on the block at the same time. Our little girl is sure a trooper - adjusting to a new house, mom going back to work, hectic mornings, more baby food, and, just in the last week, formula without a hitch.
Gracie started off her sixth month by mastering sitting. Then, to make mom proud and actually accurate for once in terms of predicting when milestones might happen, Gracie literally started crawling the day she turned 7 months. We do have this on video, but I have yet to attempt downloading from our video camera to my computer - I will put doing so on my blog to-do list! (Also on my blog to-do list are 6 month/2 year pictures along with some pictures of our new house!) Ultimately, I'm not surprised that Gracie is crawling 2 months earlier than Olivia did. Throughout the month Gracie was turning in circles, scooting backwards, and practicing her "super-baby" pose (flailing arms and legs while on belly) in preparation for that first scoot - actually it was more of a full body lunge - forward. Grace is certainly a go-getter and has great desire to play along with her big sissy. Over half the time, Gracie goes nuts when Olivia bounces into the room - kicking her legs, squealing, and now scooting to get closer.
Personality wise, Gracie continues to be incredibly cheerful, fairly flexible, and a mommy's girl (although her favorite sounds are dada and raaaaa - the raaaaa comes from watching Olivia and Brian "play roar" as Olivia likes to say). The picture of Gracie on the couch actually was taken at Slumberland Furniture where Grace and I went to take pictures of some sofa options for Brian to later look at. Grace apparently thought posing on the sofas was one of the coolest things and smiled and squealed with every flash of the camera.
Our schedule has become fairly consistent now. Gracie usually starts her day around 6:30 and ends it around 7:15. In between is a bottle, breakfast, a morning nap, a bottle, lunch, an afternoon nap, a bottle, dinner, and a bath before her bedtime bottle. She's doing better with taking bottles but rarely drinks more than 4 ounces at a time. I sneak in extra ounces by adding formula and cereal to her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm hoping that my prediction (from the sixth month entry) about Gracie sleeping through the night at 8 months proves to be as accurate as the crawling at 7 months was! At some point during the night Grace wakes up for a bottle. Honestly, although I wouldn't mind sleeping through the night, it's okay with me that she's still getting up. Gracie's a peanut - 15.4 ounces (20th percentile), so I'm okay with her taking a few extra ounces in the middle of the night. Plus, now that I'm done nursing, Brian and I can trade off with this responsibility! :)
Lately we've been spending a lot of time with our new neighbors (actually we're their new neighbors) the Gavle's. Maggie, their daughter, is just two weeks younger than Gracie, and it's fun to see how their entertain each other already - Jamie and I have joked that we think sometimes they get sick of us! Olivia loves Maggie too and asks on a very regular basis to go "see Baby Maggie and Jamie." Here's a picture of the girls at the pool. We are so happy to have such great friends living so close by!
I should do another entry sometime soon about Grace and Olivia's relationship. I truly do think their sisterly-bond is as strong as it possibly can be at 7 months and 2 years old. Although I won't pretend that Gracie has never cried because of something Olivia did/took away, I feel like I can also say that Olivia is protective of and extremely loving toward her "sissy." They love seeing each other for the first time in the morning, taking baths together, "talking," and generally playing. Olivia continues to be very helpful with fetching diapers, toys, etc., and, almost always, gladly entertains Gracie when I need a few minutes to get things done. Lately, Olivia has taken to calling Gracie "punkin" and "buggy" (abbreviation for "love bug").
Nothing makes me smile more these days than my two sweet little girls. Life is good.
