seven months…

I think this is one of the last monthly updates we’ll be able to report that Zoë is containable, meaning we can leave her in one place and find her somewhat near that same location a couple of minutes later. Although she has been active with rolling and pulling herself from place to place (the girl can cover some ground!), Zoë is really starting to explore movement. She is working on her crawling skills as I write this. She can pull up to her hands and knees, before she bellyflops back into her surfing position. I know it won’t be long. I’m proud and happy for her, but also mixed with a little sadness that our little infant is on the move. It’s hard to believe how fast she is growing; although with each stage, I find myself saying, “I love her at this age.” So, although I may be a little sad, it’s only for a few minutes as she’s off to the next stage that I know I will fall in love with. Happy seven months, Zo Zo!

(Zoë, you’re dad told me that you will hate me one day for these photos- a tutu with no top- but let me just say that you were so sweet while we were taking these pics! Thanks for being so good to me!)

This month, Zoë is…

Discovering how helpful her hands are:
- Although we have limited her pacifier to when she’s sleeping during naps or nightime , her hands have a way of grabbing at her wubbanub as soon as she gets in her crib. As for the pacifier weaning, it went way better than we thought it would- thank goodness!
- Zoë’s starting to pick up finger foods like puffs and yogurt melts. And, when her hands aren’t working as well as she wants them to, Cady wins a treat each time.
- She loves to see cause and effect- like banging her plastic puzzle shapes together or hitting the buttons on her musical cube. She’s just like her parents- she likes to see results!

Bathtime, is soak time!
- We removed the little infant holder in her whale bathtub, and now she’s on the move. You can start with her facing one way, and then within a couple of seconds, she has totally flipped around. She’s recently started to roll over on her belly in the bathtub like she’s about to swim a race!
- Her bath toys are just as much fun outside of the bath as they are inside. Case and point: we have a little scoop with holes on the bottom that offers a bit of rain shower when she’s in the tub. She loves it, and is now filling it up with water and dumping it on the counter. When we take her out of the bathtub, she has to be holding the scoop to get dressed for bedtime too.
- Our floors… let’s just say, that we’re about to have to move bath time to an actual bathroom.

Sleeping:
- Zoë is sleeping anywhere from 10-12 hours at night. She generally goes to bed sometime between 7-7:30, and wakes about 6:30am on weekdays. On the weekend, she has even been sleeping past 7am, with a special treat on Thanksgiving when she slept until 9am.
- She’s napping about three times a day. Her naptimes vary. She is definitely a better napper at home than she is at her nursery school.
- Probably one of the sweetest parts of her sleeping routine, is that when I go to pick her up out of her crib each morning, she reaches out for me with a big smile on her face. It melts my heart!

Her silly habits:
- She loves to chew her paper report card every day when I pick her up from school. It’s a piece of paper that shows when she napped, ate, and had diaper changes, and it never fails, when I go to put her in the car and take the paper from her- there’s a bite out of it.
- Zoë starting this clicking noise with her mouth. We thought it was her way of soothing herself once we got rid of the pacifier. She laughs when you click back.
- My watch…..loves it!
- When she is nursing or drinking from her bottle, she has to have something in her hands to keep her attention. Our favorite trick has been using the chewbead necklace that Aunt Kim gave us. She just holds it in her hand and feels comforted that she’s multi-tasking.
- Swinging is her thing!

Eating:
- Zoë is big-time now in her Stokke high chair. It works much better than the bumbo seat
- She eats solids about 3 times a day
- She had her first non-pureed food at Thanksgiving dinner- turkey, stuffing, and mac and cheese
- She loves veggies, and we’re still working on fruits
- Puffs- loves them! Although they often get stuck in her hands and she needs assistance getting them in her mouth.

Her daddy:
- There’s not much more to say other than she lights up when he’s around. Whether she’s sleeping in his arms, or being proudly carried by him for Halloween trick or treating, or crazily being tossed in the air, she loves everything about him. I do too:)

Cady:
- I have an upcoming post on just the two of them, but in summary, Zoë and Cady make quite the team. Every morning and night, they are together, and on the weekends, they are inseparable. It’s adorable how excited she gets when Cady is around. And Cady, well, she’s happy to have a little one her size that she can play with.